Freedom Riders in Montgomery

By Bob Zellner

October 2021

The author, a native Alabamian whose father and grandfather had been members of the Ku Klux Klan, became a charter member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was personally recruited by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as an organizer in the Civil Rights Movement. In this article, Mr. Zellner recounts witnessing the brutal reaction of racist mobs the day that “Freedom Riders” rode interstate buses into Montgomery, Alabama to challenge segregation in public transportation. For a young Bob Zellner, it was a life-changing event which helped cement his enduring commitment to the fight for civil rights.