Eleven students from Brigham Young University and four students from Jacksonville high school participated in a “Embracing the Freedom Rides” in Anniston last week.
The group learned of Anniston’s place in civil rights history at the Freedom Riders National Monument on Gurnee Avenue and visited the Freedom Riders Training Institute building across the street from the monument for discussions.
The Freedom Riders Training Institute will train protesters and law enforcement personnel alike in how to employ nonviolent tactics during protests.
The group spoke by phone to Charles Person, an African-American civil rights activist who participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides and spoke with faculty from Talladega College, Jacksonville State University and Anniston City Councilwoman Ciara Smith.
Anthony Bates, the managing director of the Sorenson Center at BYU for ethical and moral leadership, said his group of students would be visiting civil rights landmarks in Georgia and Alabama including Birmingham, Montgomery, Tuskegee and Atlanta.
“Personally for me this is my fourth or fifth time here but this has been an incredible opportunity with the Freedom Riders Training institute,” Bates said.
Bates said everyone has been hospitable to his group of students.
“I love the alleyway, it’s just a sacred spot for me personally, just a reverence there,” Bates said, referring to the Freedom Riders National Monument at the former Greyhound bus station where a bus was attacked by a mob and was later firebombed.
Pete Conroy, director of strategic partnerships and projects at Jacksonville State University, also participated in the roundtable and said he is helping to develop the Freedom Riders Training Institute, a JSU-based program inspired by Person.
Conroy said the Freedom Rider Park Board collected funds through the Community Foundation of Northeast Alabama to purchase three buildings on Gurnee Avenue in December 2020.
Conroy said the group from BYU has been making a regular pilgrimage to Anniston for years and was glad the group had a place to meet.
“This is the first time we’ve really had a place for them to sit down, to hear about the freedom rides and its impact on the nation,” Conroy said.
Smith said the group had a really good and useful time visiting the site.
“It was a great educational experience and I can not wait to have them back,” Smith said.
Smith said a lot of the people in the group from BYU are from the South.
“They feel like they’ve come back home and it’s engaging, hearing those experiences, I think it makes them feel like a piece of them has been lost but it’s been found now,” the councilwoman said.
Sebastian Stewart-Johnson, a sophomore at BYU, like his fellow students seemed inquisitive and captivated.
“I think it’s profound, like for instance, right there in the alleyway you can see the white door only and the colored door, it’s interesting to materialize history, things that we learn about and to see those things in person,” Stewart-Johnson said.
Mitchell Rogers, director of scholarships and partnerships for the community foundation, said the roundtable was a great learning experience for the students.
“They got first-hand accounts of someone who actually received beatings and was on the Freedom Rides,” Rogers said, referring to Charles Person.
The building where the students met is at 1008 Gurnee Ave. and is in a state of transition.
Rogers said the basement of one of the buildings will include meeting rooms and a museum of photographs by Joe “Little Joe” Postiglione who, while on assignment for The Anniston Star, captured iconic images of the bus burning on Mother’s Day 1961.
