Editor’s note: this is Part 6 in a series on the 60th anniversary of the Freedom Riders

Sixty years after the Freedom Riders passed through Meridian, an effort is underway to redevelop a bus station where the civil rights activists stopped on their historic journey.

In 1943 and again in 1960, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that segregated interstate travel was illegal. It didn’t matter, though, what 12 white men in black robes wrote on paper. The reality was, all across the South, Black men and women were not allowed to sit with white passengers or use the same facilities.

The 1961 Freedom Rides from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans were designed to bring attention to this injustice. The events that followed changed history and interstate travel.

In the summer of 1961, numerous buses carrying Freedom Riders stopped at the Trailways bus station at the corner of 21st Ave. and 4th Street in Meridian.

The building has not been used as a bus station for several decades and was most recently used by the Lauderdale County Tourism Bureau.

The Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience is hoping to give the historic building a new life by renovating it and using it as a space for music performances and other programming.

History of the Freedom Rides in Meridian

According to University of Florida historian Raymond Arsenault, Meridian wasn’t a main destination for the Freedom Riders.

“They wanted to make big splash in Jackson and not get diverted in Meridian,” Arsenault said.

The first Freedom Ride bus drove from Montgomery to Jackson on May 24, 1961. When it entered Mississippi, state and local authorities started escorting the bus to Jackson.

The Meridian Star reported that day that the bus drove through Meridian, but did not stop at the Trailways bus station. The bus paused briefly at a service station near the east side of the city, according to The Star.

A crowd had started gathering at the Trailways bus station several hours before the Freedom Riders had been scheduled to arrive, and it ultimately grew to about 1,500 people, according to the report in The Star. National Guardsmen and local authorities were also at the scene.

“A few front-line spectators waved Confederate flags and jeered occasionally at the Guardsmen, but most of the crowd was quiet and curious,” the report said.

The crowd dispersed after being told that the bus was bypassing Meridian, The Star reported.

The second Freedom Ride bus, which also went from Montgomery to Jackson on May 24, did not stop in downtown Meridian, either.

The first Freedom Ride bus to stop in downtown Meridian did so on May 28. According to a report in The Meridian Star, a Trailways bus stopped in Meridian at about 11:15 a.m. on its way from Montgomery to Jackson.

“Officers cleared the station of a small crowd, and formed a cordon around the terminal to maintain order,” the report said.

Fewer than two dozen observers stood around, according to The Star. No incidents took place during the stop.

New use for the building

Plans are underway to give the bus station a new life, according to Mark A. Tullos, Jr., the  president and CEO of The Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience, which sits across the station on Front Street.

Tullos said the Max hopes to use the space for music performances and other programming. The concept involves adding on to the building, he said.

“If we were to expand the footprint, we could create sort of a black box space for performances and classes and programs and rentals,” he said. “If people wanted a wedding reception over there, they could do it. So it would be a multipurpose kind of space.”

Tullos said the MAX would likely change the bus station’s interior while preserving its exterior.

The museum is also looking into acquiring a bus from the time of the Freedom Riders or replicating one, then turning it into a museum.

The bus would sit next to the station, and visitors could walk through the vehicle and view exhibits about the civil rights movement, including about the Freedom Riders and the Freedom Summer.

“We think it would be a great way to document history, but also show, through the performing arts next door to it, that there’s a bright future in our young people,” Tullos said.

The station would be a venue for the performing arts, so the station and the bus would be a “nice marriage of art and history in one place,” said Tullos, who expects the project to take at least three years. 

The first step is for the MAX to formally take possession of the bus station, he said.

The bus station used to be owned by Lauderdale County, but the county gave it to the State of Mississippi in 2019, Tullos said. The building that houses the MAX is owned by the state, too. The MAX, which is a non-profit, has a 50-year lease with the state that allows it to run a museum in a state building.

Tullos said the MAX would like the bus station and the adjacent parking lot to become a part of the non-profit’s 50-year lease. That would allow the MAX to renovate and operate the former bus station. The MAX is in the process of working with the state to modify its lease.

Once this step is complete, the MAX can start planning the project and raising money for it.