The Supreme Court outlawed segregation in interstate transportation in 1960, but Southern states largely ignored the mandate until activists arrived to test it.

A white supremacist mob in Anniston, Alabama, threw a firebomb into the bus and briefly held its doors shut in an attempt to burn the passengers alive.

Black and white activists sat side-by-side to provoke arrests, with at least one Black rider sitting in the whites-only front section to explicitly defy local customs.

The violence prompted Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to petition the Interstate Commerce Commission, which quickly issued strict orders banning terminal segregation.