Public Transportation Assignment

Civility and Civil Rights was a very moving and interesting article. I read the article before getting on the GTA bus, which I think helped me think clearly along the way. I got on the GTA route 2 bus at the corner of Tate street and Spring Garden. My co-passenger and I rode the bus the entire length of the route, to Four Seasons Town Center and back. I was out of my element the second I stepped on the bus; I couldn’t even figure out where to put my $1.20 fare, and had to ask the driver for help. The bus was fairly empty. There was a girl sleeping at the back of the bus, Emme (the co-passenger), two older ladies, two women, an older gentleman, a young man and me. I was fumbling through my route map trying to see where we were going, and how long it would take to get back.
I started to relax after a few minutes, and began to look at my surroundings and to photograph what moved me. Everyone on the bus was accustomed to it. They all were reading books, or looking out the window, or even sleeping. They knew exactly when to pull the bell to get off, a feat which I just this week mastered on the HEAT bus. I started to notice that the neighborhoods we went through, I had never been to. They were lower class homes and government housing. The entire bus emptied off at the Four Seasons mall, where most of the bus was going to work. After that we picked up new passengers on our way back to Tate and Spring Garden. There was a school age girl with a backpack, a young mother and her very talkative son, a couple, and two older gentlemen. While riding, I thought about the text. I thought how wild it was that at a time in the past century, this would not have been possible. I rode at the very back of the bus, so that I could take in all of my surroundings, but that seat would have been occupied by an African American who wasn’t allowed to sit at the front of the bus just because of their race. On my way off the bus I saw a sign posted up front; it read, ROSA L. PARKS February 4, 1913- October 24, 2005 “In honor of her sitting.” This really touched me because her strength and determination, and local action helped change things nationally, which made me think of the article.
Civility and Civil Rights was a little disheartening. The Greensboro Women’s College in the article, now known as our beloved UNCG, hindered the progress of the desegregation movement, which really upset me. As someone who grew up not only in the south, but 25 miles to the east of Greensboro in Burlington, I know that this wound is still fairly deep. My mother went to Williams High School, the same high school I went to. During her freshman year she was bused, along with her entire class, to Sellars Gun, an all African American school, to try and desegregate. This was in 1978. I heard about the sit-ins growing up, and I knew that there was a very important sit-in in Greensboro, but that’s all I knew about it. Reading about the perseverance of four STUDENTS really made me proud. It takes the “think globally act locally” movement to heart. The local actions of four students from Greensboro helped change the entire social climate of our nation. This article inspired me to think, and to act. No one thinks that they can make a difference, but this article shows that you can.