Jacksonville State University hosts the premiere of “A Fire in Anniston: A Freedom Riders Story” at 6 p.m. Thursday night at Ernest Stone Performing Arts Center. Read the full story
Photos of West 15th Street revitalization.
Photos of World Changers volunteers and their helping hands in Anniston.
Photos of the Oxford July Palooza on Main St. in downtown Oxford.
Jacksonville State University hosts the premiere of “A Fire in Anniston: A Freedom Riders Story” at 6 p.m. Thursday night at Ernest Stone Performing Arts Center.
Anniston City Manager Steven Folks said it’s time for the city to come up with a replacement plan for the trees — something that council members have also mentioned in recent days
The Shoal Creek Church, built in 1895, got a much-needed facelift last year, which included a new floor, new floor joists and additional bracing to shore up its sagging roof.
How we view the celebration of the Freedom Riders, and the many other celebrations of historical significance to Black Americans, is much debated.
How could this average, small-town street, busy with hardware, grocery and seed stores become a global destination?
In the spring of 1961, an interracial group of 13 “Freedom Riders” set out to challenge discriminatory state laws and local custom that required races be separated on buses and in bus station facilities. By the end of 1961, over 400 Freedom Riders risked their lives criss-crossing the South on more than 50 Rides.
Within hours of the attack, FBI agents were out in force in the community, knocking on doors and gathering evidence. They interviewed dozens of residents, and encountered considerable resistance among the white population of Anniston.
The students did not give up. It's an attitude that carried them through a successful movie theater integration campaign and toward the Freedom Rides. While they were celebrating their victories, they also heard about the defeat of the Freedom Riders in Alabama.
The only surviving arrestee from the infamous 1961 bus-burning attack on civil rights Freedom Riders traveling the South says: “I was blind, but now I see.”
Her memories are littered with moments of her father’s hatred toward Blacks, and even the thought of what he might do impacted her life.
Historically, Calhoun County native Kenneth Lamar Adams is most remembered for his involvement in two violent events: the 1956 assault in Birmingham of singer Nat King Cole and his role in the 1961 attack on the “Freedom Riders” just outside Anniston.
The Page 1 article was, of course, important enough to present with eye-catching typographic treatment — the first two paragraphs received larger print. It was positioned in the top right corner of the page, where the biggest news of the day normally goes.
People who picked up the Sunday edition of the Anniston Star that morning would learn that peace talks were underway between warring factions in Laos and the Alabama Legislature was fighting over redistricting. There was no mention of the Freedom Riders.
When the call came into the Anniston fire department, firemen Joe Evans and Enoch Hughes rushed out of Station 4. They had heard about the violence that had taken place at the bus station on Gurnee Avenue.
Anniston awoke slowly, gently, its Sunday morning routine hard to disrupt.
Charles Person, a college student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, decided to take part in the Civil Rights Movement. He was only 18 years old and needed parental permission.
At about 1 p.m. on Sunday, May 14, 1961, 19-year-old Howard University student Henry “Hank” Thomas came into Anniston with 17 other passengers on a Greyhound bus.
I remember this event vividly, not just because it was a moving recognition of that pivotal moment in the civil rights movement and Anniston’s history, but because it differed so drastically from what I had found upon moving to Anniston.
OXFORD — Across U.S. 78 from a Lowe’s hardware store, wedged between a vacant fireworks outlet and a cellphone tower, is the grave of Maj. John Bush, a Georgia planter who moved his family and his slaves to then-Benton County soon after the Creeks were marched west. When he died in 1847, his…
In coming weeks, the park service plans to put up a display about the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign and open the historic bus station site on weekends for visitors.
On behalf of his fallen father, a little boy in 1945 accepted the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star during a retreat parade at the Fort McClellan post headquarters parade grounds.
The article from 1945 doesn't state what percentage of the students qualify for free lunches, but they definitely did exist for those enrolled in the Calhoun County school system.
