American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Henry (Hank) Thomas, 2 of 4

lay's this is that you know as the new moms all right so far so good says for reforms that was that was the western ones first stop was richmond we went into the bus station absolutely no problems with turkey if i'm not mistaken i think the manager of the bus station greeted us and said joe you know you're welcome welcome to richmond me away and he just completely throw us and so

there was no problem and of course obviously you had the reporters erin and all of that so if that was our introduction to the south it we just thought and i'm pretty sure they're older ones realize that that's not the way it's gonna be alright town but once again i just thought hey this is going to be pretty good and if what we're going we're integrating and making the changes their enrichment and find this is a week's comedy and done there was no interaction in terms of conversation that i can remember between of the passengers because we were obviously nothing we want on the bus reichl passengers was there and there was no interaction between them i do remember the black passengers who of course we are in the back of the bus or cheerios apprehensive about what we were doing or the older blacks to see

black and white people sitting together that was unnerving because they didn't know what was going to happen and for the blacks before the whites and solve this i'm pretty sure they expressed their disapproval and frontman but for once again for the blacks it was you know that this was not the usually thing's gonna but are done so what's going to happen to you people yeah yeah as i said the first man we stayed overnight in richmond i don't remember where we i think we may have stayed at a ymca or something and we had to a meeting at a church mass meeting for people understand what we were doing and very joyous occasion for the folks who live there enrichment obviously they thanked us for doing what we did and you know getting the bus stations in everything open

and so we were so all cells that is freedom fighters freedom riders bring in freedom and change to serbia to the city of richmond and actor local mass meeting we always had someone pry will begin far more join those are a couple of other people who would dare to speak to the folks and you know tell them what we were doing and it was just a wonderful joyous thing which among we were greeted as heroes than we had that we stayed overnight in richmond hannah the church meeting and like a revival if you will and we were hailed as heroes them lots of funny stories were being told we had one fella on the ride opening bolton

cox cox was the guy who can tell a funny story about anything our next stop trying to control it was pretty nice like richmond no problems whatsoever i don't think any city official greeted us in charlotte but that the police were there to make sure that there were no problems and i said sure later on the ball from richmond and charlotte the city officials it's a hit there will be more problems and because they have a reputation to uphold limber they kind of prided themselves at the time on been a moderate southern city so we were having fun it was going quite well ms terry

here i never told my mother what i was doing and that is generally true of a lot of the participants because obviously apparent ago war ii also parents in some cases alabama mississippi were retaliated against by the local people and they found out that one of their children or just participating in the city so it wasn't it was serious business i don't think that would've happened in st augustine but i didn't want my mother delores were never told what i was doing or where it was but in one instance when of course the bulls have been burned in alabama and i had been jailed in mississippi but to have the un mandate go to my mother's house in florida are

clearly with the idea or frightening her and she was in the only one that received visits from the fbi and they simply told her to get in touch with me because what i was doing its global level to get me hurt so picture if you will to come to your mother's house in the middle of the day and asking for you and then taught her that he's liable to get hurt and she had a way of getting in touch with me so i didn't realize until much much later on just how agonizing that was for you well this is going to be a family jericho was a pervert he was a racist he was a man who hated

black folks he hated jews and he was determined that the civil rights movement was controlled and infiltrated by communists and says he can come up and say he hated black people he then used the idea that these black people are being put up to these things by the communists and he's gonna do everything he can to discredit the movement we all know about the campaign against uk became really care about fbi agents threw out the self more vicious in some cases than others did everything they could to disrupt the movement they had agent provocateurs to actually get fire started they knew that they they infiltrated the klan they knew some of things that the klan was gonna do they knew about the klan planned to burn the bus in anniston alabama and of

course they did nothing about it and it wasn't until he was pushed by bobby kennedy and president johnson that year who who who began to do something but these that the fbi more than even the plan to a certain extent did things to turn to just four of the civil rights movement and especially against the black panthers they actually murdered some of the black panthers by setting up situations saying that the panthers far beyond them in this type of thing so that was a vicious organization the region's racial vicious organization and of course we all know about all the dirty lowdown things they tried to do to dr king again

childers so we've got to a point that the totals about him just no time it was no longer a walk through the other thing that happened to me in rock hill the police took me out of the jail cell that hiked and tomorrow at the bus station i barely escaped from the mall while running and then there was a black man yeah ok ok

ok i was arrested and taken into police never did but we had to set that is so i was the rest of the music and i was a wretch and rock hill north of south carolina rock hill south carolina i was arrested after john lewis had been begun was taken to jail put into a sale never booked after a couple hours that begin to worry me no one said anything to me i'd ask questions that voyage silent treatment well that was amusing for the first couple hours and then i'm starting to get work

and once again i haven't been built yet and just they are in a cell after several hours i'm really getting were these old movies that i've seen weston's boss man been taken out of the sail and be in a never been seen again someone major nation began to work overtime i don't know what time it was at night but they finally two deputies are two year two police officers came to get gold material sails to come out and i'm asking questions no one says anything to me but when the police car and ask again where am i going where you've taken one father said you wanted to leave where we can actually i said ok where my take i were you taken where we're taking you to the bus station ok fine i had some money and so when we turned the corner and i saw the

bus station as a crowd of men the white surrounded the bus station it could've been thirty five forty men and i knew then what was going on and i said the bus station looks like a school's what time is aaron of the buses we don't know probably sometime the more more i swear you can put me out here one of the police that doesn't stop the car and the police also on the low presence i turn around and i can see it is probably his hand was done and he said maybe get out of this car well i had to make a decision that if i got out of that problem was going to kill me if i stayed in the congressman's coalition so just quickly i'm a tattoo is i think i can outrun them off and when i get out and of course you know now look and see which way i'm gonna start running hobson run away from the mob and the police took off and the guy started coming

toward me and probably within the next couple seconds a cop pulled a rule for this sublime intravenously son get him get in his car and laid down on the floor and he took off and i never did meet the man before he died it was rather it he was president of the end of really sleepy and rocky at paralyzed veterans and that's how i got a rock you what is it really the most oh yeah ok john lewis has been beaten up i go into the restaurant a white only restaurant in the late going to the way to police came in right behind those

in rock hill south carolina as in the south it's against the law for a black person to go into a restroom that is designated for white man and i did that saw immediately broke the law and they are going to relieve myself and worse who loses you talk to the person obviously an extreme but you wanted to be you were very careful to maintain certain the core of all we or so we were told that the fbi had informants on the bus then so be

careful what you say do not discuss perhaps in the politics or anything like that and know you just maintain your core of them alive i'm pretty sure that i had something to read and you just probably only talk to the person next to he tried to act like normal passengers if you will in a normal passengers would probably talk to the person in the seat next to them but basically that was by that i don't think there were restrooms on the boston those days are here well i had not done much traveling in my youth and so sea in south carolina i don't think i've ever been in south carolina prior to that our survey with exceptional northern virginia had not been in virginia since that time oh well up until that time so watch in the scenery go by and of

course you would travel know a great deal and rule part of the state tend you look at to the dilapidated houses than you could also say to yourself you know this is one of the things we're fighting against it because you saw lots and lots of poverty even if you didn't you know see it in the home town that you grew up in and yes aniston was known to be the home of a very active duty klux klan organization and that it was not going to be in the century was we got to amnesty and that we had to really get serious as in you don't have to really tell us that but it was a somber in

terms of we're going into the jaws of the tiger that express was used at that time but basically that's that's what it meant o'donoghue yahoo gallows humor was mixed and i think was young for told me a story from a podium and the church that aniston is gonna be bey aniston had a bad reputation said it one time a boss came down from new york greyhound bus came down from new york and its way through the south and they stay the bus travel is driving his in here to city of amherst and he heard a knock on the door so he pulled over to the shoulder of the road and he opened the bus door in incomes does greyhound and the gray home came up and

get to the bus route in a basra arrested where you go and he said we're going to amazon made no way i'm going to be out on the side of this bus and of course are one that left about that but i did i said well i didn't understand it was a joke until but that was some indication of just how difficult thing for an answer and the kind of reputation that aniston head and so we knew it was not easy this is true atlanta we had to usual mass meeting and we talked about what was going to happen the next day that we were going to manage the prayers were made for us because those people who live in asserting all knew about instance reputation

and so we were going into the jaws of the time governors who did he was one of the people young governor paterson my knowledge of him was from office the statements he made during the civil rights movement to sit in demonstrations students at alabama state have been suspended from school to purchase order i am numb so we knew he was a bad guy very outspoken very colorful that's a term that they use and so you know he knew where he was all races and that we knew this reddit racist so we you know were no illusion that but

it felt to him as the city school for talks about them and you as we were hearing anniston boasted was coming from a distant pull up on the opposite side of the highway an officer signaled obama stronger to stop the two bus drivers got out talked for a couple minutes animated fashion our bus driver got back on in the meantime everything is quiet and the bus and all the trouble that the tone and turn around and look there's a discount it didn't show his teeth which is counter yeah that type of thing that can allow and whole case we know we were in for it now but still not knowing exactly where it's gonna be like as we entered the city limits of amnesty that

would the streets were deserted that was really unnerving as we got to just this will return the corner we could see the bus station at least two hundred people around the bus station or a man when a solvable so quietly let other yale was something like that the bluster they were crowding the bus stations such and such a manner that drama could not get the bus into i guess would call it the terminus terminal area slowly he drove the bus tour busses and they were yelling and screaming it was time for joe perkins and it blank and jaime a blanket time as to why it was time for them to get off the boston to go into the eu waiting room to see if it was segregated and said he told joe i think its energy

efficient joe was determined know we gotta get all and and he said joe take my word for less to celebrate a ghost service joe was insistent the bus driver got off and he was able to push his way through the crowd and as he got off the bus thankful he locked the bus door back so they could not get into the bus but now they're beating on the bus and then they started breaking out the windows the bus may have been there for ten or fifteen minutes to us it seemed like an hour and the bus driver or maybe this was a point where they were supposed to change drivers get on and he was able to ease the bust of the craft well as he got the buzz back onto the street to pick up trucks were in front of the bus and they would not let him go any faster than maybe five or ten miles an hour and i looked in the back bye mom meditate in everybody has agitated

because it's pretty clear that we're in trouble here and i look behind decided the rear window and there was a caravan of cars coming behind this meantime the bus travel with attempts several times to try to go around the pickup truck they would speed up and not let him go around after we got outside of the city the bus driver pulled over to the side of the road and there was a crowd of people there as well look like a general store a sense later learned that the bloat sparse had been slashed and all that air guitars had gone flat and coincidentally right at the point where this global mobile people waiting approach a story that the crowd of people there had just come from church they have their children with children were on my shoulders they came to watch the freedom riders get beat up

or get killed and they brought their children with them they just come from church and this was the entertainment of them and for their children to see him that year the remainder of the boss winters were smashed luckily for us safety plan so they crack the windows but the glitz didn't share owners but by this time and i'm like everyone else on the bus ok let's put it mildly is one is they can't get on the bus we safe and iraq and the boss on bacon i can they actually turn his boss over all the windows and

and they're trying to get onto him to the bus put the godhead lock the doors so they can't do that then i noticed two white guys on the bus well i know i'm still again because i had seen him before and these were alabama security agents they were taking lots of pictures and a couple of the pictures that they have taken a hell their job was to find out if we were convicts and yellow or the information the crew so that john patterson to tell everybody that the freedom riders were a bunch of comedies or fellow travelers and so that's what they were therefore we thought at one point they were fbi people they did force the door open at one point and one of the guys who's a pretty marked follow got up and stood in the doorway and then he locked the door but at this point something

was shot abort the boss from the rear window and there was immediate choice of stressful for a jury flies far on the boss want the buses burning in the back we got the mob outside i had to make a decision do i go outside and this mob was gonna kill me beat notre dame or do i stay here and burn on the bus so for creditor purposes i had decided to commit suicide and just trying to figure out what state lease painful way to do it is what when smoke started and i found it difficult to breathe like everyone else i remember i had to basically a former military man said get down on the floor and put to face right down to the floor because there is some oxygen down there where would be that only a few seconds that didn't work so i

got a make a decision i'm thinking if i take a deep breath of this toxic smoke you put me to sleep and the child will die but that's not you have the way things work when you get that toxic smoke inside the human reaction takes over is that you've got to get somewhere you got to get some as cher so i ran up to the front of the bus and by now the boss is completely smoke filled and i tried to open the door and people on the outside of the bus were holding and i only thing i could hear flares burn the mischievous burnham is laugh in it's all there will be a few more seconds before you're gonna pass out from smoke inhalation and at that moment and i'm for myself against that door trying to get a rope when there is an explosion in the back of the books the explosion is that the flames have gotten to the fuel tank and the fuel tank exploded and when that happened i

heard someone said this court ago was going to go and they ran and the postal way we can get that door open and within two to three minutes but boss was fully engulfed and flying well when i got off the bus a man came up to me and i called them and strangling the city or your right and i'm thinking well you know this is somebody who's concerned and i'm out of my head and the next thing i knew i was on the ground he had hit me with someone thought that was part of a baseball bat i was a little struggle to my feet and the buses still burning and is there a hot that he could feel the heat from the bus and so the crowd began to move back in as we would move out from the bus they come towards well it was then that i noticed a highway patrolman and one is a

sunni pretty soon it's bad but now the papers