The Civil Rights Movement Revised Edition

Freedom Ride 65

Connor, Theophilus

Eugene ‘Bull’ (1897–

1973): Birmingham’s

public safety commis-

sioner who ordered dogs,

nightsticks, and pressure

hoses against civil rights

demonstrators.

niggers and nigger-lovers.’ With that invitation, the enraged mob surrounded
the bus, dented the sides, smashed the windows, and slashed the tires. To
complete the lynching in a deserted area, the driver drove out of town, where
the mob pummeled the bus again. When someone hurled a smoke bomb
through a smashed window to force the riders out, the seats caught fire, forc-
ing the choking passengers to lie on the floor to breathe. Delighted by this
turn of events, the mob cried, ‘Fry the goddamn niggers!’ Henry Thomas, a
Howard University student from Florida, decided that the asphyxiating
smoke on the bus would kill him, so he might as well face the bloodthirsty
mob. He was almost killed, as his head was clubbed with a bat. When the
rest of the coughing riders stumbled out, they too were assaulted while
the bus burned then exploded. The lynching was interrupted by, of all peo-
ple, an undercover Alabama state patrolman, who brandished his pistol and
badge and shouted that he would kill any assailant. When the grievously
wounded riders reached a hospital, the mob threatened to burn it down.
In the nick of time, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth sent a caravan from
Birmingham to rescue the injured. Except for the embarrassing media cover-
age, Kennedy’s Justice department regarded the bombing as nothing more
than ‘a pain in the ass.’
The Trailways bus arrived in Anniston an hour later. As four policemen
stood by, hoodlums entered the bus with brass knuckles, blackjacks, and pis-
tols. One of them gave an ultimatum: ‘I ain’t movin’ this bus another foot
until the niggers get into the back of the bus where they belong.’ The black
freedom riders ignored the demand and were thrown to the rear. When two
white riders – James Peck, a wealthy 46-year-old white pacifist, and Walter
Bergman, a retired professor with socialist sympathies – intervened, the
hoodlums savagely turned on them too. Peck ended up face down on the
floor, bleeding profusely, and Bergman’s head was kicked until his brain
hemorrhaged and he was confined to a wheelchair for life. One observer
described the bloodshed as a ‘hog killing.’
This same Trailways bus reached Birmingham later that day. Shuttles-
worth warned the riders that it was an open secret that a mob would be wait-
ing for the buses. The mob was encouraged by the notorious commissioner
of public safety, Theophilus Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor, a high-school dropout,
union buster, and former sports radio announcer, who wanted the riders
stripped naked and beaten until ‘it looked like a bulldog got hold of them.’
Gary Thomas Rowe, an 8th-grade dropout and divorced father of four who
had just joined the klan, forewarned the FBI that the police would let the
KKK do its dirty work. Rowe had overheard sergeant Tom Cook tell imperial
wizard Robert Shelton of the United Klans of America that ‘you can beat ’em,
bomb ’em, maim ’em, kill ’em, I don’t give a – –....You can assure every
klansman in the country that no one will be arrested in Alabama for that

Rowe, Gary Thomas

(1934–98): An Alabama

klansman and FBI

informant.