Restored bus with Minnesota ties tells the story of the Freedom Riders

Dorothy Walker wanted a vintage bus to help tell the story of the Freedom Riders, a tale of sacrifice, bravery and unfathomable violence — but also one of hope.

As the director of the Freedom Rides Museum in Montgomery, Ala., Walker combed the internet and made countless phone calls. She chased leads for a midcentury passenger bus that could be restored as a mobile exhibit, exploring a chapter in history that seems especially relevant in the wake of George Floyd's murder.

And she found what she needed in Minnesota.

In May, a newly restored 1958 General Motors intercity bus from Hibbing rolled up to the museum in Alabama's capital city, greeted by a crowd that contained nary a dry eye.

The bus marks the 60th anniversary of the Freedom Rides, which challenged segregated interstate travel and served as a critical linchpin for the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

"Small things can lead to big changes," Walker said in an interview. "Buying a bus ticket could lead to systemic change. How can we emulate that in our own time, and in our own way? These were ordinary people who lived ordinary lives."

But their impact was extraordinary.

The civil rights activists — men and women, Black and white, all trained in nonviolent tactics — set out to test U.S. Supreme Court rulings from 1946 and 1960 that banned segregation in interstate travel. Despite the rulings, buses and trains, as well as lunch counters and restrooms in stations and terminals, remained stubbornly segregated in the South.

The Freedom Riders sought to purposely violate segregationist local laws governing public transportation. Knowing they would likely face violence — or worse — they sent farewell letters to loved ones and crafted their wills before embarking on their journeys.

The first two buses left Washington, D.C., en route to New Orleans on May 4, 1961. On Mother's Day in Anniston, Ala., one bus was firebombed by a raging mob, and activists on the other bus were beaten by hoodlums led by the Ku Klux Klan. Other Freedom Riders were subsequently attacked in Montgomery by a racist throng armed with iron pipes, bats, chains and guns.

But the Freedom Riders kept coming. Ultimately their strategy called for flooding jails and courts in the South.

Claire O'Connor, a white University of Minnesota student and one of the six Freedom Riders from Minnesota, arrived in Jackson, Miss., on June 11, a Sunday morning. When she walked into a waiting room marked "Colored Only," she was arrested for disturbing the peace and taken to local jails before ending up at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, notorious for its dire conditions.

"We knew we'd be jailed," said O'Connor of Minneapolis. "We were committed to change, we were fighting for equality." Back in St. Paul, her mother Justine penned a letter to the Pioneer Press that bore the headline: "This Mother is Proud Her Daughter is in Jail."

That fall, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission to end segregation in interstate travel, which declared such practices unconstitutional in November 1961.

While Walker's plans to create a mobile exhibit date back at least four years, the effort took on a certain poignancy following Floyd's death last year.

"It's a good time to reflect back on history," she said.

Americans take the ability to travel freely about the country for granted, she said, but there was a time when Blacks using public transportation "weren't assured there was a place to use a restroom, a place to get out of the weather or get a bite to eat."

"I was beside myself," Walker recalled.

Greyhound traces its origins to Hibbing, beginning in 1914 when miners were shuttled to work in something called a Hupmobile. The museum is open from May to October and hosts some 7,000 visitors in a typical year.

"It was the exact model, but it was gutted inside. It ran, but it wasn't in road shape," said Dicklich, who calls himself the museum's "volunteer director."

He persuaded the museum's board to donate the bus to the Freedom Rides Museum.

"I think it could be an excellent educational tool," said Dicklich, a former Minnesota legislator and retired historian. "I grew up watching [the civil rights movement] on the news. I understand it. But even those of us sympathetic to the movement could understand it better. It's an important exhibit, especially for young kids."

ABC's Operations Manager Pat Wolff, who led the restoration, said his first impression of the decrepit Greyhound bus was: Wow, what a flashback.

"The shell was there, but most of the panels were corroded, it hadn't run for years, most of the inside was completely gutted out," he said. "It was torn apart and forgotten."

Wolff, who says he's a "Level 3 Bus Guy" (meaning he really likes buses), was intrigued. Though General Motors has long ceased making buses, some important components such as the diesel engine and the transmission were made by companies still in business, so parts could be found.

But there were challenges such as finding vintage seats, a search that culminated when an ABC sales rep spotted a similar bus in the middle of a field in Wisconsin while calling on a customer.

"Trees were growing out the middle of it," Wolff said. But it had all its seats and parcel racks that could be removed and used. An auto restoration firm in tiny Kilkenny provided the distinctive mint green seatcovers, with tan headrests, after Wolff called the shop on a lark.

An employee in ABC's graphics department was able to recreate the loping Greyhound logo on the bus' outside panel. ABC's Service Office Manager Kendra Gardner exchanged "thousands" of e-mails with the Freedom Rides Museum and others to keep the project on track.

"It was very rewarding," Gardner said. "When the bus rolled out of the parking lot, we were in awe. The bus and the meaning behind it are beautiful."

A southern Minnesota native, Wolff said he doesn't recall learning about the Freedom Riders while in school. But he read up on the movement while working on the bus.

"It really opens up your eyes," he said. "The [Freedom Riders] were willing to die so the next generation could have a better chance at living normal lives without segregation."

Wolff said the restored bus can provide a tangible connection to the past.