Freedom Riders National Monument

Established on January 12, 2017, Freedom Riders National Monument shares stories of people and places that gained national attention in the fight against the injustices of Jim Crow laws and eventually led to regulations banning segregation in interstate travel.

In the spring of 1961, the “Freedom Riders,” an interracial group of civil rights activists, set out to challenge discriminatory state laws and local customs requiring segregation on buses and in bus station facilities. Their journey was dramatically opposed by white supremacists who viciously attacked the Freedom Riders on multiple occasions.

The monument includes the former Greyhound Bus Station located at 1031 Gurnee Avenue and the place where the bus was firebombed about six miles outside of the town on State Route 202, two sites where the Freedom Riders were attacked by segregationist mobs.