Trouble in Alabama

Aboard two buses, 13 men and women, some Negro and some white, set out from Washington, D.C., in early May. They called themselves "Freedom Riders." They meant to demonstrate that segregated travel on interstate buses, even though banned by an I.C.C. ruling, is still enforced throughout much of the South. They were, in fact, hunting for trouble--and last week in Alabama they found more of it than they wanted. For in Alabama, mobs were permitted to run free and wild by top state and local officials who, from Alabama's Governor John Patterson on down, abdicated their duties of maintaining law and order. The result by week's end was a brutal, bloody outbreak of violence that brought on the gravest federal-state conflict since Little Rock.

The Freedom Riders' trip began as an enterprise sponsored and paid for by the Congress of Racial Equality, an organization headquartered in Manhattan and dedicated to breaking down Southern racial barriers through nonviolent techniques. CORE selected its Freedom Riders from among some 60 volunteers. Assembling in Washington, the group underwent three days of training in CORE methods of meeting violent situations without fighting back. Among the leaders of the Freedom Ride were two white men who have made careers of getting into trouble for causes: New York's James Peck, 46, who spent three years in prison as a conscientious objector during World War II, and Connecticut's Architect-Painter Albert Bigelow, 55, who got tossed into a Honolulu cell after he and three shipmates set out in 1958 in the ketch Golden Rule, heading for Eniwetok atoll in an effort to halt scheduled U.S. nuclear tests.

Setting out from Washington, the Freedom Riders rolled with little fuss through Virginia and North Carolina. At each stop Negroes used white rest rooms, sat at white lunch counters. There was a brief scuffle at Rock Hill, S.C.; two Negro riders were arrested and quickly released in Winnsboro, S.C. Then came another quiet stretch. No incidents took place in Sumter. S.C., Camden, S.C., Augusta, Ga. and Atlanta.

Bombed Bus. "I could tell the difference when we crossed the state line into Alabama." recalls Negro Freedom Rider Charles Person, 18. "The atmosphere was tense." Outside Anniston, the first stop in Alabama, whites who had been pursuing in cars caught up with the Freedom Riders. An incendiary bomb was hurled through a broken window, setting the bus afire. "The bus soon filled with black, acrid smoke," recalls Freedom Rider Bigelow. "We had to get out somehow--there was no chance at all of surviving inside." The waiting toughs beat up some of the Freedom Riders who emerged first, but police then fired pistols into the air, and the mob drew back. Ambulances took the Freedom Riders to the Anniston hos pital, where examinations showed that none had been seriously injured. The Freedom Riders in Bus No. 1 were finally rescued by Birmingham Negroes who heard of their plight, sent cars and brought them to Birmingham.

"A Peaceful People." Just as bruising was the ordeal of the seven Freedom Riders aboard Bus No. 2, which had trailed several miles behind the lead bus coming into Anniston. In Anniston, eight whites climbed aboard, began roughing up the Freedom Riders before cops broke up the brawl. At Birmingham's Trailways Terminal, another mob charged the bus, swinging fists, blackjacks and lengths of pipe. Although the terminal is just two blocks from Birmingham's police headquarters, the cops were conspicuously absent when the blood began to flow. Said tough, bullfrog-voiced Police Commissioner Eugene ("Bull") Connor later: "Our people of Birmingham are a peaceful people, and we never have any trouble here unless some people come into our city looking for trouble." Said Alabama's Governor John Patterson: "I cannot guarantee protection for this bunch of rabble-rousers." Not everyone in Alabama was so complacent about the situation. The Birmingham News, which last year vigorously denounced the New York Times for saying that fear and hatred stalked the streets of Birmingham. now conceded that "fear and hatred did stalk Birmingham's streets yesterday."

The Freedom Riders gave up their bus tour and flew to New Orleans and safety. Whether courting martyrdom or standing for principle, they had unprotestingly submitted to blows and injuries for their cause. And now others took it up. In fast-integrating Nashville (see below), a group of ten college students--eight Negroes and two whites--felt impelled to finish out the Freedom Riders' uncompleted bus trip from Birmingham to New Orleans. When the bus bringing the students from Nashville got to Birmingham, the cops first jailed the students in "protective custody."

To protect the Nashville bus riders, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy warned Alabama's Governor Patterson of U.S. concern with the case, considered sending in federal marshals, and dispatched Administrative Assistant John Seigenthaler to send back firsthand reports. Bobby Kennedy tried to get Patterson on the phone. But John Patterson, who loves to spout off about states' rights, was unwilling to take on the responsibility for maintaining law and order in his state. Patterson's office declared the Governor unavailable to the U.S. Attorney General. Later, at Bobby's urging. President Kennedy himself tried to call Patterson --but the office said he was somewhere "out on the Gulf" and could not be reached.

In the vacuum of Alabama leadership, riot ruled. Some of the Nashville stu dents, joined by sympathizers, white and black, boarded a Greyhound bus and were escorted to Birmingham's limits by city cops, who then turned the whole business over to state troopers. But despite ample, early and dire warnings, no policemen were waiting when the bus pulled into Montgomery, Ala., a city that had been relatively free of racial violence since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led a successful Negro boycott against bus segregation (TIME cover, Feb. 18, 1957).

And so, when the integrationist bus stopped in Montgomery last week, there was no one to stop the senselessness. An idiot, club-swinging mob of about 100 surged toward the riders. Trying to save a Negro girl from serious injury, John Seigenthaler got clouted from behind.

About ten minutes later, Montgomery cops sauntered up. Explained Police Commissioner L. (for Lester) B. Sullivan: "We have no intention of standing police guard for a bunch of troublemakers coming into our city." The state police came after an hour. Neither group was effective. At one point State Public Safety Director Floyd Mann saved a Negro only by pulling a pistol. A group of young whites poured an inflammable liquid on a Negro's clothes and set him on fire. One Montgomery woman held up her child so that he could reach out and beat on a Negro with his fists.

Only after the mob had grown to 3,000 did the state police finally decide to end the riot with tear gas. In Washington, Bobby Kennedy was white-lipped with anger when he heard the news. Moving swiftly, he deputized some 400 nonmilitary officials--largely deputy marshals and Treasury agents. He sent them by chartered flights into Alabama, under the personal command of Assistant Attorney General Byron ("Whizzer") White. Attorney General Kennedy also set in motion injunctions against the Ku Klux Klan and other prime segregationist groups to prevent them from interfering with peaceful interstate travel by bus.

This time, the Administration meant action. From the White House, President John Kennedy declared: "The situation which has developed in Alabama is a source of the deepest concern to me. I hope that state and local officials in Alabama will meet their responsibilities. The U.S. Government intends to meet its."

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