Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Freedom Rider Discusses 1961 Bus Trip Into Deep South
Aired May 11, 2001 - 09:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: It has been 40 years since civil rights activists risked their lives in what became known as the Freedom Ride.
Our Martin Savidge looks back on that trip with one of the men who dared to ride.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hank Thomas was never supposed to be a Freedom Rider, but 40 years ago, fate handed him a ticket.
HANK THOMAS, FREEDOM RIDER: My roommate at the time, John Moody (ph), had signed up to go, had taken all of the training, and was set to go, and I think that at the last minute, he became ill.
SAVIDGE: At 19, Thomas took his place, the youngest of 13 blacks and whites traveling by bus from Washington into the Deep South, testing federally-mandated desegregation of transportation facilities.
The first trouble came in Winnsboro, North Carolina.
THOMAS: Congressman Lewis got off the bus to go in to use the white facilities, and as soon as he got off the bus, he was attacked by a mob that was already waiting there. He was beaten and knocked down.
SAVIDGE (on camera): Thomas was arrested. Later that night, two police officers took him from his prison cell, he says, and delivered him to a waiting mob outside a dark city bus station.
THOMAS: I said you can't put me out here -- these people will beat me up.
He put his hand on his gun, and he said, Nigger, get out of this car. And when I got out, the police burned rubber taking off.
The crowd started coming toward me. They had sticks, maybe bats -- stuff like that. And I looked around to find out in which direction I was going to run.
At that moment, a car pulled up. A black man was driving. He said, Son, get in. I jumped in the car. He said, Get down on the floor, and don't move. And of course, he took off, and I was expecting at any minute to hear gunshots into the car.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): The Freedom Ride traveled on to another town, Anniston, Alabama, and another angry crowd. They slashed the bus' tires. It managed to limp out of town before stopping for another white mob, fresh from Sunday church.
THOMAS: They were in their Sunday clothes. They had their kids. And when that bus pulled over, the bus driver immediately got off, and they started to rock the bus as much as you could rock a Greyhound bus.
SAVIDGE: The crowd broke out the windows. They tried to force the door. Then they set the bus on fire.
THOMAS: The crowd then held the door, and I could hear, Let's burn them niggers alive. The thing that saved us was that one of the fuel tanks on the bus exploded, and when that tank exploded, it blew out the back of the bus, and everybody in the crowd ran.
SAVIDGE: An undercover FBI agent took this picture, showing Thomas on the ground with the hulk of the burned-out bus behind him.
Moments later, a man came up to Thomas asking if he was all right. When he said yes, the man hit him with a baseball bat.
With most of the participants in jail, the Freedom Ride fell apart in Birmingham, short of its goal of New Orleans.
But for Hank Thomas, the journey wasn't over. He volunteered for Vietnam as a combat medic. First came the malaria, and then the ambush that shattered his hand and sent him home.
He went into business, eventually buying a McDonald's restaurant, an ironic turn for a black man who even before the Freedom Ride nearly was arrested trying to buy a hamburger from a McDonald's. Eventually, he'd own six of the fast-food restaurants and co-own two hotels.
THOMAS: These are my peonies.
SAVIDGE: Now successful and semiretired, Thomas spends a lot of time working his garden. He says he enjoys watching things grow: flowers, grandchildren.
THOMAS: Obviously, they will never have to go through any of the things that I went through as an African-American, as a black person, in this country, and I am very proud. Only lately can I bask in the fact that I had a small part to play in changing this country.
SAVIDGE: The Freedom Ride didn't reach its last stop in Louisiana, but Hank Thomas believes he's living proof it did reach its destination.
Martin Savidge, CNN, Atlanta.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
