Freedom Rides Museum

Extremely in-depth museum in the original Greyhound Bus Station complete with very affordable gift shop.

I really enjoyed visiting the museum I plan to go back soon to get more books. If you have a chance stop by and get a feel for history!!!

Great experience to stand where history was made. We were there for the unveiling of several new exhibits. We actually sang with James Lawson Jr. one of the original Freedom Riders! Wonderful experience, great people act worth the price of admission. I was a guest of the Lewis family which made the experience that much more historic. It's a must visit if your into history... Our history.

It's closed on Sunday so we were only able to walk around the outside of the museum. Despite being closed, there was a ton of information posted outside the building. It's well worth the stop to learn the details of such historic events and such brave and selfless people. We also stopped by the Baptist Church where the Freedom Riders hid after the initial attack. It's only a few minutes away.

So much important history in one small building. Don't skip this museum. Tells the story of the Freedom Riders. The people who work there are incredibly kind and helpful.

Bias Warning: My mother is honored in the museum. Okay, so my mother is a Freedom Rider and if you're a museum and are going to say nice things about her then you're going to get a good review (plus they had us come and speak). The museum is small but so was the bus station it is situated in. The staff knows their stuff and the museum itself is packed full of content. It's an important museum that deserves your time and attention. While you're visiting all the other sites in Montgomery don't forget this museum. It's a critical piece of American and Civil Rights history.

Well curated and laid out. Ashley is a great story teller and helps the museum come to life.

A nice little compact museum located in the actual Greyhound building where the bombing took place. No photos are allowed inside and the entire museum only took me about one hour to get through. One side is full of artwork and on the other side there are exhibits. Groups can request an informative talk by a member of staff (must be arranged in advance). Staff members are very friendly and knowledgeable.

So much important history in one small building. Don't skip this museum. Tells the story of the Freedom Riders. The people who work there are incredibly kind and helpful.

They stood up so that we could sit down. Another stable to stop at while visiting Alabama. The Freedom Riders Museum has a lot of information on the Freedom riders. They tell the story through the words of the freedom riders during the civil rights movements. You learn about the routes they took and all the obstacles they had to put up with. The museum also has a lot of good books on sale and My friend And I purchased some. The only thing I wished was the museum was bigger and had more things to view. Until next review Kisses

First, you can't take photos. But that's okay, this is mostly a factual museum. Based in a former bus terminal associated with the freedom rides, it lays out the very important and dangerous protest piece by piece, over 10-15 worded tiles. Most of the museum is words on a board, some photos, a few quotes, and some art exhibits. But the docents here are nice and helpful and it's a great small adjunct to the other sites around Montgomery and the Civil Rights trail.

We go here every time we have folks come to town. It's a must see opportunity. Not to be missed. Knowing the history is necessary to the freedoms we have in this country. If Black people can experience these things then there's no reason others can't know about their experiences.

As other reviews have mentioned, this is a small museum with a limited amount of displays and information. While the curator is indeed very enthusiastic and passionate, I don't think there is any significant information here that you don't find at many of the other Civil Rights Museums around town. After all, the bus segregation in Montgomery was headline news for years and the catalyst to the movements focus in this area of the south. So it is part of most of the conversations about history here in Montgomery. The largest value is physically being able to walk into the building where the riders arrived on their journey and witness the blueprints of the buildings design, which focused on segregation. You can walk the "colored" waiting room and see from the inside where the entrance has since been bricked over & mortared shut. Don't get me wrong, this place has relevance and shares a little more detail about the riders than most. But I think to stand out they should offer something the others don't, maybe a bus ride with videos and maybe even live action to reenact what the riders were feeling and ultimately experienced. The Freedom Rides were many and have a complex 6-month history, but the museum location was actually the site of a watermark moment of violence on May 20th, 1961. [ GREYHOUND STATION HISTORY ] Initially, the ride began in Washington DC by a group known as Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The goal was to ride all the way to New Orleans but the trip became an increasingly hostile journey as it entered the deep south. South Carolina was particularly hostile. Some of the DC riders abandoned the mission and the Tennessee students stepped in not wanting it to fall apart. Even Martin Luther King Jr. warned: "You will never make it through Alabama." But they courageously continued on. --- "Anniston, AL segregationists firebombed one of the buses and a mob attempted to attack the riders as they fled the burning vehicle. When the second bus reached Birmingham, Alabama, a mob with similar intentions also assaulted the riders, who were dragged away and beaten nearly to death. The Freedom Riders were not allowed to leave the city for five days as Bull Conner, Birmingham's Public Safety Commissioner, effectively held them hostage." [source: National Register of Historic Places - NPS] MUST WATCH Janie's Story about firebombing: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedom-riders-young-witness/ --- The riders were coming from Birmingham after being delayed the day before because the driver refused to drive due to an angry mob surrounding the bus station. Alabama State Patrol was forced to protect the bus by the Kennedy administration, but later abandoned the bus at Montgomery city limits. At 10:23 a.m., another mob awaited the bus where the rider were beaten severely. White riders were particularly given extra violent attention by the angry mob and even reporters and photographers were attacked and their cameras destroyed. Ambulances refused to take wounded riders to the hospital and local police, while present, did not intervene and allowed the beating to go on. The nightmare didn't end in the days that followed as local and state officials made no attempts to protect the people or bring any order to an out of control growing mob. Even a Justice Department official was beaten and left unconscious lying in the street. May 20th, 1961 Freedom Riders whom risked it all included: William Barbee | 19 Paul Brooks | 22 Catherine Burks | 21 Carl Bush | 19 Charles Butler | 20 Joseph Carter | 22 Allen Carson, Jr. | 19 Lucretia Collins | 21 Rudolph Graham | 20 William Harbour | 19 * Susan Hermann | 20 Patricia Jenkins | 18 Bernard Lafayette Jr. | 20 Fredrick Leonard | 18 John Lewis | 21 William B. Mitchell Jr. | 18 Etta Simpson | 19 Ruby Doris Smith | 19 * Susan Wilbur | 18 Clarence M. Wright | 19 * Jim Zwerg | 21 * white Be sure to take time to walk the museum with the curator, who holds a vast amount of knowledge about each of the displays. I personally got more out of listening to her than I did reading all the information in the displays. Story of Chela Lightchild - https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/mlk-s-oratory-turned-a-young-woman-into-a-freedom/article_cef52c6f-e85a-5d8e-a156-49ae30da588f.html [ FINAL THOUGHTS ] Again, while the museum itself is not particularly large, it is stained with the blood of courageous people willing to give up their own safety and risked their own lives for the sake of humanity. These amazing people even wrote farewells and wills prior to boarding the bus. WHAT COURAGE!!! They did this largely and initially without support from anyone and it is for that reason this space is 5-stars. 2019/83

Okay, so this museum is TINY. But I have to give it four stars, because the story of this building is so important and interesting, making the museum worth visiting even if it is tiny. In 1961, a group of young people made history by boarding a bus and driving it through the South to challenge segregated transportation - they called themselves Freedom Riders. I don't want to give away all the history of this former Greyhound bus depot, but the Freedom Riders faced incredible danger and violence in a strikingly brave manner. The museum is within what is left of the Greyhound bus station the Freedom Riders stopped at in 1961. When you walk in, they'll tell you when the next tour is. There isn't really a tour - but you do get a short lecture on the history of the building and get shown blueprints of what the building has looked like in the past (what it looked like when it had segregated waiting rooms and what it looked like after Supreme Court rulings ordered de-segregation of transportation centers). Then you can walk around the small museum. I particularly enjoyed reading the short bios of each of the Freedom Riders. This might be a tiny museum, but it's only $5, and the history you learn here will be important. Even if you're very familiar with the history of the Freedom Riders, walking around the place where that history occurred is an amazing experience. Highly recommend - especially if you feel that you want to know more about the Freedom Riders and segregated transportation in the South.

Go here and meet the director, Ms. Dorothy! She's incredibly knowledgeable, kind, passionate and engaging! The content of the museum is great but Dorothy made this experience one of our favorites during our visit to Montgomery!

A very good little museum staffed by a really enthusiastic young SMART woman who 'made our day'. The old Greyhound Bus station in downtown Montgomery 's been transformed into an education centre for all things 'Freedom Rider', the phase in the civil rights struggle from the early 60's/ The to 'ing and fro'ing between STATE and Fed laws. The BRAVE young ones who put their bodies on the line and RODE buses through the southern states to prove the point that it WAS unconstitutional to segregate inter state passenger services. Stories told IN DEPTH. More than 400 men and women placed their lives at risk to RIDE. Every state and even Canada represented. 1961. I was 10 years old. It DID make the news. It MATTERED. Interested to chart those people's lives and see them in modern times. A small museum. 5 bucks entry, 4$ seniors. a wealth of information shared in a very special way by curator / hostess. recommended.

This is a small museum that could possibly easily be skipped if you don't have much time in Montgomery, but do reconsider! Even though the space is small, the amount of information shared is not! Our tour guide/curator was wonderful at bringing the story to life! She was able to answer all of our many questions and clearly knew her stuff. I learned so much that I hadn't learned from other Civil Rights museums and the many activists are represented in ways that makes them seen. You will be glad you made the time to stop in!

The Greyhound Bus Station at 210 South Court Street in Montgomery, Alabama, was the site of a violent attack on participants in the 1961 Freedom Ride during the Civil Rights Movement. The May 1961 assaults, carried out by a mob of white protesters who confronted the civil rights activists, "shocked the nation and led the Kennedy Administration to side with civil rights protesters for the first time." The property is no longer used as a bus station, but the building was saved from demolition and its facade has been restored. The site was leased by the Alabama Historical Commission and a historical marker was located in front of the building. In 2011, a museum was opened inside the building, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C. on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17. The black and white Freedom Riders were trying to compel the U.S. government to enforce U.S. Supreme Court decisions outlawing segregated transportation, and wanted to end the discriminatory practice of allocating seating on the buses and bus stations with a preference for whites. Organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the plan was to have mixed pairs of riders sit side by side. The first ride consisted of two buses, one from Greyhound and one from Trailways, and the plans included a final leg starting in Atlanta, Georgia, and stopping in the state of Alabama in Anniston, Birmingham, and Montgomery before ending in New Orleans. In Anniston, a mob of angry whites violently attached the Greyhound bus and set it on fire; the riders were severely beaten. The Trailways bus arrived an hour later and was boarded in Anniston by Ku Klux Klan members who beat up the Freedom Riders. It was also attacked in Birmingham, and several riders (including James Peck) were beaten in front of the press. Reports of the violence reached US Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who urged restraint on the part of Freedom Riders and sent an assistant, John Seigenthaler, to Birmingham. CORE agreed to halt the Freedom Ride in Birmingham on May 14, with the remaining riders flying to New Orleans. The riders, who had been left unescorted by the highway police as they reached Montgomery city limits, arrived at the bus station at 10:23 AM and were met by a crowd of violent white protesters, including women and children. Several were injured in the racist attack, including Robert Kennedy's assistant John Seigenthaler, who had followed the bus in his car: attempting to rescue two white female riders, he was hit over the head with a metal pipe and "lay unconscious on the ground for half an hour." Floyd Mann, a "committed segregationist, tough on law and order," stepped in to protect William Barbee, who was to remain paralyzed and died an early death as a result of his beating. Floyd fired his gun in the air, yelling, "'There'll be no killing here today.' A white attacker raised his bat for a final blow. Mann put his gun to the man's head. 'One more swing,' he said, 'and you're dead.'" On Sunday, May 21, Martin Luther King, Jr., C.K. Steele, and SCLC officers came to support the Freedom Riders. That evening, they and the riders joined the evening service in Ralph Abernathy's First Baptist Church on North Ripley Street while some 3000 angry protesters yelled outside, burning a car and threatening to burn the church. From inside the church, King telephoned Robert Kennedy, who urged the activists to "cool down," a proposal refused first by Diane Nash, and then by James Farmer (on behalf of CORE) and King. Kennedy had sent 500 U.S. Marshals, headed by United States Deputy Attorney General Byron White. Airborne troops were on standby at Fort Benning,[3] just across the Georgia state line. The Kennedy Administration's decision that it would send US troops to restore order was protested by city and state officials.[8] The marshals, with the help of Floyd Mann and his state troopers, managed to keep the mob at bay; it was finally dispersed with the help of the National Guard at midnight. The Freedom Ride again went on the road, and travelled to Jackson, Mississippi, where the students, which by now included Nashville Student Movement activists Bernard Lafayette, James Bevel, and others, were arrested as they attempted to segregate the "Black" and "White" waiting rooms in the bus terminal. As a result of the unrest and the nationwide publicity generated by the Freedom Rides, in late May Robert Kennedy was able to successfully petition the Interstate Commerce Commission to adopt stronger regulations and desegregate interstate transportation.

THE FREEDOM RIDERS There was really no need for me to go inside of this Greyhound bus station because all I needed to know was displayed on the outside of the building. Going inside only confused me because it was very limited and it really did not add anything to expand or enhance my experience. Also, there is a more comprehensive display in Birmingham which I visited just last summer. The outside of the building told me all I needed to know. Along the front of the building, you will need to start to your left and walk along the front to understand what took place when the Freedom riders arrived in Montgomery on May 20, 1961. The riders consisted of students and activists who wanted to test the interstate segregation laws that had been ruled unlawful. Would the laws be respected here in Alabama or would segregation stand? When the riders who were non-violent and unarmed arrived at this Montgomery bus station, they were viciously attacked by Klansmen and others. The local police were no where to be found. Eventually the national guard and state police stepped in to provide provide safe passage for riders to leave the area. This incident brought great embarrassment to the president and much needed attention to issues of segregation. This was a really sad day in black history but important to remember, especially when you realize that these people left home prepared to die for this cause. The photos of those that were beaten are fairly graphic so be careful if you are taking young children to this site. It is definitely a great place to stop and reflect. This station was placed on the historic registry in 2011. What took them so long?

The guide is great and very knowledgeable. The exhibits are limited but should definitely be a stop on your Montgomery civil rights tour.

This is a small museum, there's no doubt about that. However, this museum was one a Greyhound bus depot where segregation was present and where John Lewis and other freedom riders continued on their journey. Definitely worth a stop.

My expectations were low because this is a small museum with extremely limited hours, open only from 12 to 4pm on Friday and Saturday. But it was new to me and piqued my interest so I worked it into my schedule. I'm glad I did because it's a powerful and interesting story. There's an iconic photograph of a Greyhound bus burning on the side of the interstate that's seared into my memory. That's about the extent of my knowledge of the Freedom Rider movement. I discovered there's so much more that I didn't know. And I was unaware of the central role Montgomery played in this slice of civil rights history. When I arrived, the attendant/cashier asked if I'd like a tour. I laughed because the room is so small I thought she was joking. But she was serious and her commentary provided great context and really made the exhibits come alive. I learned so much. Arrange your schedule to visit during the museum's limited hours, it's that good. If that's not possible, stop by anyway. They've found a creative way of sharing this story when the museum's closed with an outside montage of powerful photographs and narrative that will put you in the center of the story and convey what happened.

Born & raised in the south & never have I learned even half the information about the Freedom Riders that I did here. On the smaller side, but very nice facility. Definitely a good stop. A typical tour takes about an hour. Take the tour with the wonderful, informed, enthusiastic women working here and you wouldn't be disappointed

Five stars because Dorothy was so terrific at telling their stories. My daughter and I stopped in on our way to Atlanta from the Gulf coast, and it was a very convenient and easy stop. It was very inspirational and engaging, and we both learned so much. The museum is very small and still getting started, but was a very moving experience.

A wonderful experience. We learned so much about those who fought for civil liberties as well as about the Jim Crow southern era in general. The wonderful woman in charge is hugely resourceful and truly knowledgeable. She should really write a book. Don't miss this historical gem.

The one star review is not about the site itself, the site is wonderful, the history is displayed well, informative, and I love that the building was kept. The information and artwork displayed inside, depicting the history is also wonderful. This was my 2nd visit here in the past year, the first time I was short on time and so we did not take the tour. This visit I was there with my step son, we walked in, and saw that the guide was busy giving another tour. I started to get cash out of my wallet to pay for the 2 of us when the guide informed me that unless we wanted a guided tour that we should just read the information outside. She then turned back to her tour not even waiting for my response. Um. That's probably why I was standing there with cash on the counter. Rude. I won't return no matter how interested someone is in seeing the site.

I really liked this museum. It is small but we spent a good 30 minutes or more looking at everything. There is a great timeline outside of the station that shows some of the major players. I liked that they didn't shy away from shaming those who not only led the violence but allowed the violence to occur. I have been to other museums before that highlighted the Freedom Rides; however, this was unique because it was located in the actual place in which one of the events occurred. It was very neat to see from the old photos where we would have been standing. You can also see the former "colored" door as well as how the station was originally laid out in the segregated sections. Inside, the staff was extremely friendly and welcoming. They gave us some information about the museum and then we walked around on our own. The museum is very well-designed and rivals big-city museums in quality though not size. They don't really have any artifacts from the original bus station, but there is some thought-provoking art as well as mugshots of the Freedom Riders along with recent photos. There is also information about each person including his/her take in his/her own words. The cost of the museum is $5 or $4 for students, AAA, etc. Not an amazing value but I was okay with the cost. I already knew a lot about the Freedom Rides and still got something out of being in the actual location, and my partner knew very little about them so it was a great learning experience for him. The Freedom Rides are very inspiring and this museum really highlights the bravery of those who participated. I would recommend it to anyone.