American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Jerry Ivor Moore, 4 of 4

[Interviewer] What did the Freedom Rides accomplish? Okay. [Moore]: Well the Freedom Rides accomplished I guess what they were set out to do, which was to desegregation, uh, to get the laws enforced, because people weren't living up to the laws, so the buses would be desegregated, you could sit anywhere in the bus you want, you could eat in any terminal, you wouldn't have segregated waiting rooms, and interstate travel would be free, and that that basically was the immediate thing that the Freedom Rides did accomplish. Ya know? Raised consciousness, a lot of people didn't even know. [Interviewer]: What's your greatest memory of the Freedom Rides? When you're on the ride, what's something you remember well? [Moore]: I don't have one; there were a couple. I loved it when we stopped in a, uh- there was Georgia, at the college, Albany, before we went on, and the students there, getting a chance to talk to the students about, y aknow, civil rights, that was great.

I think Shuttlesworth, meeting Shuttlesworth- [Interviewer]: We going to not go there. [Moore]: Charles Charles Pe-- Person [Interviewer]:Talk about [cut] [background noise] [Moore]: What about this one: when we were in New Orleans and I was with Charles and woke up-- [Interviewer]: Bus ride from Atlanta to Birmingham, so start out. The bus on that Mother's Day, you get on the bus, you're going to Birmingham, what happened? [Moore]: Okay, well we got on the bus and Charles was sitting on the right hand side, the front seat, and I was on the left-hand side behind the driver, and these two guys are sitting behind me who'd been sitting at a counter when we took off from Atlanta. So we're going down and there's a little-- make a stop in Cedar, Cedar, Georgia, and in those days I smoked then, I didn't have any matches so I jumped off the

bus, uh to go in just to buy my penny box of matches and the guy in the terminal, he grabbed the doors to stop me from getting in, and it was like "whoa, now what am I going to do?" because I wasn't even thinking about testing, I was just going to get this book of matches. And this guy that had been sitting behind me told the guy to let me in, right? Cause he' gone on; he'd gotten off the bus before me. And uh, so I got back on the bus, this guy came to the door of the bus and he said "You niggers is going to get it in Anniston," ya know? And he left and so then we went on, and James Peck exposed himself because he came up front, ya know, and he told me, he said "don't test at places that aren't designated," you know I wasn't really testing, and he told me that the bus had been burned, one of the buses had already been burned, and he went and sat back down. So then we got to Anniston, and there was a whole crowd of people, they had the terminal locked up and people were in the windows

screaming, yelling, and stuff and it was really angry, almost cartoonish, I guess in a way and all of a sudden there was the sheriff, they had their German shepherds and a guy with a Winchester and they had the bus surrounded and so Dr. Bergman, Peck, and someone else, they got off the bus, because they couldn't get into the terminal and they went and bought coffee and stuff for everybody and they came back with it. As the bus was going, along the way the bus would stop and they were picking up these guys and this was the white t-shirt guys with the-- they had little cigarette packs folded up in the shoulder, and they were getting on the bus along the way and so once we were in Anniston the sheriff, chief of police, whoever it was, came out and he said that a bus had been burned and that the-- no, back up. The bus driver came on at one point, the bus driver

got a phone call, the sheriff came and got him, he had a phone call, you could see him at the payphone, booth. He went he came back in, he said that "I know the niggers got a right to ride where they want, but, ua know, a bus had been burned and I ain't going to burn for them," or whatever it was, and meanwhile these guys that had been getting on the bus, it was like one of those little cowboy movies, they all started standing up, "we ain't dying for no niggers, get in the back, get in the back," and they came up to the front and they started moving us, trying to move us to the back, and this one guy started beating Charles. Peck came up and he said, I remember he said, uh, "what's going on?" and this one guy, uh, remember he grabbed both sides, a seat on each side of the aisle and got himself in the air and with both feet he [snaps fingers] kicked Peck in the chest. right. And then this guy jumps on the bus, he had a blue suit and he actually had a straw hat and I remember he had this, a carnation in his lapel, this guy is something like FBI, ya know, and [I don't]

don't remember his exact words but it was like "cease and desist" or "be cool" whatever. And he just disappeared and the next thing I know these guys are hitting me and whatnot and they were moving us out and they threw me on top of Dr. Bergman, ya know and I remember one guy, somebody was hitting me in the back of my head and another guy was kicking me in the back and uh, they finally got us into the seats and uh I swear this guy found this, I don't really call it poetry, things I'd been writing about the cause, and this was the guy with the pistol, and uh he had pointed me out that I was the one, "that's the guy that was reading it," and he also told us that uh, we were going to get it in Birmingham more or less. Yeah. [Interviewer] So what happened when you got to Birmingham? [Moore]: Not about the harassment on the way there?

[Interviewer]: I thought you did that. [Moore] No, that's when we were leaving they were threatening all the way there. So when we got to Birmingham-- [background noise] So then when we pulled into Birmingham, uh, we were getting off the bus and Peck and Charles Person immediately started down this little, uh, hallway, it was like a hallway, ran down into the terminal. Uh, Dr. Bergman, his wife, uh, Booker, and some of the other people were just outside the bus, like they were just grouped outside the bus. And the guys were yelling at us, all the racial ?user? epithets and calling uh, like Bergman and everybody commies and socialists, and I remember thinking, ya know, it's funny the people

that are concerned about our freedom, they're the ones that they're calling commies and socialist and da-da-da. and uh, but anyways got off the bus and then- So, when we get off the bus the people in the crowd, I remember looking at Booker and our eyes met, and he looked away and when he looked away my ?inaudible? guts just jumped, it was like-- I guess it's beyond fear, ya know, because I know fear, had been through things, but I guess because I already started, they were already beating Peck and Person, Charles Person, and these guys had been running by with bats and chains and stuff as we pulled, ya know, as we pulled up. So, I guess he figured that was it, that was it, and I think what he communicated to me was that he felt sorry for me and that I interpreted it as he thought I was doomed basically, was going to die, and uh Herman and I just turned and started walking

down into the terminal, ya know, where the beating was already going on and uh, these guys had actually set up like a gauntlet because they was standing on the side, ya know. And as we were walking down there, uh, this one guy, I saw him, actually saw him raise up and he was going to hit-- I don't remember exactly what he had in his hand, whether it was a pipe or a bat or something, but anyways a flash went off, ya know, like a bulb from a flash, the flashbulb went off, and these guys turned on the reporter and ya know I don't know where that guy was, that reporter, but basically he saved my life. I believe that he saved our lives. And after, uh, oh all of a sudden heard the sirens and then these guys all started running, they were just running, and Herman I were standing, started out, walking out, and we turned, we stopped, turned, and looked back, and pretty much the whole parking lot was empty, ya know, Herman and I were standing there, these guys were running, and uh,

this brother that worked there ran out and uh, I guess he saw me and Herman, Herman's bigger than me-- [Interviewer] Okay, we can cut. We're going to have quiet for a few seconds. Thank you. Okay.