Gary Thomas Rowe Jr.

In 1961, Gary Thomas Rowe helped plan and lead a violent mob attack against the Freedom Riders in Anniston, Alabama. He worked together with the Birmingham Police Commissioner, Bull Connor, and Police Sergeant Tom Cook (an avid Ku Klux Klan supporter) to organize violence against the Freedom Riders with local Ku Klux Klan chapters.[5] They assured Rowe that the mob would have 15 minutes to attack the bus before any arrests were made.

Rowe admitted to using a baseball bat during the attack,[6] in which the mob attacked the Greyhound bus carrying the Freedom Riders at a bus station in Anniston, Alabama on May 14, Mothers Day. They slashed the tires and set the bus on fire with the Freedom Riders still inside. The mob held the doors shut, intending to let the peaceful civil rights group burn alive, but a small explosion scared them back from the door. As the Freedom Riders exited the bus, they were badly beaten by the mob and many had to be taken to hospitals which refused to treat them.[7]

Although there were state patrolmen there during the incident and they fired warning shots to call off the mob, they did very little to protect the Freedom Riders from being beaten and burnt alive. Most of the Freedom Riders who were intercepted in Anniston sustained life-threatening injuries either from the beatings by the Ku Klux Klan, or from prolonged exposure to the smoke and fumes from the destroyed bus, and were sent to Anniston Memorial Hospital for immediate attention. When an ambulance arrived, its driver would only take white Freedom Riders to the hospital. The driver was shamed into taking both black and white casualties by the white Riders' refusal to go without their black companions, coupled with the intervention of an undercover policeman, Ell Cowling.[8] When the injured Freedom Riders arrived at the hospital there was no doctor present, only nurses to provide aid to those in need. They were eventually denied medical attention because they had "caused a commotion" by bringing the white mob to the hospital. Even though Gary Thomas Rowe had informed the FBI three weeks earlier that the attack on Freedom Riders would happen, they decided not to intervene but only to ask what had happened to Genevieve Hughes, who was one of the injured Freedom Riders. She stated, "When I woke up the nurse asked me if I could talk with the FBI. The FBI man did not care about us, but only the bombing".[9]

The Freedom Riders were attacked by the KKK again in Birmingham. Once again, Gary Thomas Rowe played a central role in the mobbing and with the help of Commissioner Bull Connor. The KKK used iron pipes, baseball bats and bicycle chains to beat the Freedom Riders as they left the bus.[7]

Years later, Rowe recalled how a call from police headquarters to Rowe had tipped them off to when and where to attack the Freedom Riders in Birmingham,[8] saying:

We made an astounding sight ... men running and walking down the streets of Birmingham on Sunday afternoon carrying chains, sticks, and clubs. Everything was deserted; no police officers were to be seen except one on a street corner. He stepped off and let us go by, and we barged into the bus station and took it over like an army of occupation. There were Klansmen in the waiting room, in the rest rooms, in the parking area.

A photograph of Rowe and several others, including Eastview Klavern leader Hubert Page, beating George Webb on May 14, 1961, was taken by Tommy Langston of the Birmingham Post-Herald, who was also caught and beaten. Although the camera was smashed, the film survived and the photo became one of only a few pieces of physical evidence of Rowe's involvement.

In 1963, Gary Thomas Rowe may have helped perpetrate the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four young girls. One of the Klansmen eventually convicted of the crime, Robert E. Chambliss, said that it was Rowe who had bombed the church.[10] Investigative records show that Rowe, who was no stranger to dynamite, had twice failed polygraph tests when questioned as to his possible involvement in the bombing.[11] Because of this, the FBI and the prosecution did not use Rowe as a witness in Chambliss's trial.

The FBI was also said to believe that Rowe was involved in the bombing of Martin Luther King Jr.'s motel room at the Gaston Motel on May 11, 1963, as well as the bombing of the house and parsonage of Martin Luther King Jr.'s brother. Through one of his African American informants, Rowe claimed that black Muslims were responsible for placing the bombs there. Rowe was eventually arrested with several other Klansmen in June 1963 after Alabama police received a tip-off that they were in possession of a truck full of assorted firearms and explosives intended for use at the University of Alabama to prevent the admission of James Hood and Vivian Malone. They were later released from jail and given back their weapons.[3]

In 1965, Rowe was involved in the murder of civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo as she was returning from the Selma to Montgomery marches with other activists. Rowe was in the car with three other Klansmen as they chased Viola's car after they saw a black man in the passenger seat. They pulled up next to her car and shot her dead.

The FBI attempted to downplay the situation and discredit Liuzzo by spreading rumors that she was a member of the Communist Party, that she was a heroin addict and had abandoned her children to have sexual relationships with African Americans involved in the Civil Rights Movement.[12][13] This came at a time when the Bureau was also trying to smear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Communist party.

In 1965, Rowe testified as a trial witness against the three other Klansmen involved in Liuzzo's murder: Collie Leroy Wilkins Jr., William Orville Eaton, and Eugene Thomas. Because he had provided information leading to their conviction, Federal authorities placed Rowe in the Witness Protection Program under the name of Thomas Neil Moore. Following his testimony, Rowe was rewarded with a job as a deputy U.S. Marshal.[10]

Rowe was relocated to his home town of Savannah, Georgia. Later that year, Alabama authorities attempted to have him extradited back to Alabama to charge him with the murder of Liuzzo.[10] However, they were unsuccessful. Rowe claimed that the FBI had promised him complete immunity in return for the information he provided against the other Klansmen.[10]