Greyhound Bus Terminal (Montgomery, Ala.)

Now: In May 2011, on the 50th anniversary of the assaults, the Greyhound terminal was reopened as a museum honoring the Freedom Riders.

“Awful things happened at that bus station,” says Lecia Brooks, director of outreach at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization based in Montgomery.

The façade of the Greyhound terminal was restored to its 1961 appearance. Inside, there is art commemorating the Freedom Riders and the civil rights movement.

Montgomery holds a vital place in the struggle to achieve racial equality in America. It was in Montgomery in 1955 that Rosa Parks refused a bus driver’s order to yield her seat to a white passenger. Her lone protest sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott – an effort to overturn racial segregation throughout city’s public transportation system. That same bus is now on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.

Photo: The Greyhound bus station in Montgomery, Ala., now with a restored façade, was the site of a clash between the Freedom Riders and protesters in 1961.