Dear Editor,
Hank Thomas is the only remaining American hero of the original 13 Freedom Riders — seven Black and six white — who left Washington, D.C., on buses together 65 years ago this past May to expose the Jim Crow laws of the South and the systemic racism that existed.
They sat at lunch counters together, and the Southern response was torched buses, the Freedom Riders being put in jail, and some being beaten. But the abuse made the news, and … we, the people, demanded change.
Hank was born to a sharecropping family and became a multimillionaire businessman, owning a chain of Marriott hotels and fast-food establishments. He was 19 at the time of the Freedom Ride and later served our country overseas as a medic. Hank received many awards, including the Purple Heart, defending a country he loved that didn’t love him back quite so much.
It’s amazing what happens when Black and white people come together for a common cause.
Two other Georgians we lost this decade were on that same bus. One was John Lewis, 21 at the time and born into a sharecropping family, too. He went on to become a Georgia congressman in Washington, D.C., and served until his passing in 2020.
Charles Person was also a Freedom Rider, whom we lost in January 2025. He was born in a tenement in Atlanta. It had only two rooms, a kitchen and a living room, and there were seven people in his family. Charles thought nothing of it.
He, too, went on to defend our country in Vietnam and, unfortunately, came home affected by Agent Orange.
In his late 70s and relegated to a wheelchair, Charles became an author, writing Buses Are a Comin’, a book about his experiences as a Freedom Rider.
Charles once told me he wrote the book to ensure history was not forgotten. In fact, all four high schools in Lake Country recently made Buses Are a Comin’ required reading for seniors during Black History Month, effectively making them “Freedom Readers!”
All 13 of these participants should be recognized with either the Congressional Gold Medal of Freedom or the Presidential Gold Medal of Freedom.
There is a pending bill in Congress, H.R. 1247, regarding this medal. However, it states “collectively,” which would include the more than 400 Freedom Riders who came from all over the country and were thrown into Parchman Prison in Jackson, Miss.
I believe Congress should change the wording to “original Freedom Riders” to recognize and celebrate the 65th anniversary of their ride and get the bill passed.
If we can’t celebrate heroes who brought about positive change, we deprive our country of inspiration for further heroic acts.
Randall Harman, Putnam County