Freedom Riders Park Anniston Alabama

It was on May 20, 1961 when a group of civil rights activists known as the Freedom Riders arrived by bus in Montgomery. An angry white mob was waiting for them at the Greyhound Bus Station in Alabama’s Capitol city. The attackers used baseball bats and iron pipes to beat the Freedom Riders, which included future Georgia Congressman John Lewis. The Montgomery attack followed similar violence in Birmingham and Anniston earlier in the month.

Charles Person, one of the Civil Rights Movement's original Freedom Riders attacked in Alabama, echoed organizers across Georgia when he urged a group of Generation Z and millennial activists to encourage young people to vote.

Crews broke ground on a park aimed at illustrating the violence as well as the hope embodied following a 1961 attack on civil rights workers.The Anniston…