The Experience of a Bus Monitor in South Boston

Yes, I was a bus monitor in South Boston. After the first day of school, they had problems. And they had a meeting in Roxbury and we talked about the trouble that they had in South Boston. And I was asked if I would go and ride the bus the next day. And I said yes, I didn't mind riding the bus, and I did.

That next day, going up G Street, there was a lot of parents standing around, and children standing around, and people making a lot of signs, and saying a lot of things, and calling a lot of names. And that was my experience the first day being a bus monitor. Well, I just felt there was a need for me to be on the bus every morning. I could see a need because some of the children were frightened who rode the bus in the morning. Even after the first day experience, I could see a lot of the children were quite frightened on the bus in the morning.

And I would talk to the children up there and just try to -- I'd pray with the kids. I used to really, really pray silently myself on the bus, and just pray the Lord would just take us there safe to school, and bring the children back safe in the afternoon. It was very hard every day for the children, and on the children, to get on the buses in the morning, and to change buses at the Bayside Mall, and to get on buses again to go to the high school.

I even talked with children from the L Street school. I talked with children from the Houghton Dean School, and try to talk to the girls and the boys, and get on the bus in the morning, and try to tell them to just try to be cool, and try to go to school, and go there for an education. We wasn't coming to South Boston to fight. We were really coming here for an education

[CHATTER]

Right now I do have a son that's bussed to Gavin School in South Boston. And I'm satisfied with the teachers that I met, and the curriculum that they're having in the school.

I go to Gavin School in South Boston and there isn't that much trouble out there, as much trouble as it is now at South Boston High. And there's some things I hate out there, especially the way they beat on the white kids, just because they like to play with the Black kids.

And there's a friend I have named Timothy Riley, that the white kids are always beating up on. He lives out in South Boston. He would wave at the Black kids on the bus while we're leaving, and then the other kids would be kicking him and everything. They'd be knocking him down. And they just-- I don't like it. They just might be mad because he likes-- he could get along with Black kids, but they can't.

I don't think it's the kids fault. I think it's the parents fault because the parents would be like telling the kids to be treating the kids how to be prejudiced against Black people, and I don't know why they do it.

To be very honest, no mother wants her child to leave home, to go someplace else and go to school. I prefer my child going to school right here, but if it's going to better his education-- and they said you get a better education being bussed-- then I think all parents should be glad to have their children bussed.