Preservationist helps Black families save key civil rights sites in the South

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. — Hank Thomas settled into the recliner in his living room, drifting in and out of sleep. His wife, Yvonne, pulled a blanket over his chest. It

Hank Thomas and his wife, Yvonne, talk about his blanket's central photo, which shows him outside a bus that had been bombed because he and other Freedom Riders were on it.hoping to hear a revelation. When he first met Thomas a few years back, Howardjob. Instead, he joined an organization attempting to preserve the history of the civil rights movement.

One of several signs planted along Highway 80 to mark the 54-mile Selma-to-Montgomery march that Martin Luther King Jr. led in 1965. Howard spends most of his days driving his white pickup truck along Alabama’s winding roads, his dad’s old World War II veteran hat dangling from his rearview mirror. He rolls

The bus station in Anniston, Ala., where Hank Thomas and other Freedom Riders were attacked is now a monument. Visitors can hear Thomas's story from a speaker under the commemorative plaque. In the midst of the pandemic, Howard volunteered to moderate conversations with the last two living original Freedom Riders at Zoom events commemorating the 60th anniversary of their actions.Charles Person shows a photo of a White mob beating him in 1961. He and Hank Thomas are the last two living original Freedom Riders.

There were four “campsites” where protesters stayed overnight while completing their 54-mile sojourn.the City of St. Jude, an old hospital campus with a church and school — and to transfer the property to the city of Montgomery. Howard hoped to help the city construct affordable housing, a park and maybe even a long-desired grocery store across the street.

Cheryl Gardner Davis walks on her family farm, one of four campsites where participants of the Selma-to-Montgomery march stayed.Howard, she was the daughter of Robert Gardner, who had welcomed marchers at a campsite about seven miles away from St. Jude. She figured there was little to lose in having a conversation. If another campsite family called, she’d be courteous but brief.Fifteen minutes after Howard hung up, Davis’s phone rang again. It was DaVine Hall-McGuire, the granddaughter of David and Channie Hall, whose farm had hosted the marchers on the first night after they crossed the bridge.Hall-McGuire, now 50, had grown up outside Los Angeles and worked as a hairdresser. She was loquacious and warm, like her mother.

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