The Coleman’s First Bus Ride Adventure

Lela Coleman

The Coleman’s First Bus Ride Adventure

I was born in 1954 in a small rural town in Winnsboro Franklin Parish Louisiana.  I was the 6^th child of eleven children. My father was a farmer and my mother stayed home and took care of the little ones. We were like many African Americans living in the south, farming and living somewhat of plantation life.

My father was a Sharecropper. Webster’s define sharecropping as “A tenant farmer who is provided with credit for seed, tools, living quarters, and food, who works the land, and who receives an agreed share of the value of the crop minus charges”. My father worked in the fields from from dawn to dust, with my older siblings helping him after school and during school break. The plantation owner would never pay him correctly for all his hard work and he knew if he made waves he would run the chance of not getting paid at all.

I can recall in the early 1960’s the Klux Klan burning crosses and our church was burned to the ground. It was a very hard life and my parent in 1966 decided to move to Seattle Washington.  My father’s  brother John lived in Seattle and worked for The Boeing Aerospace Company. My uncle John helped my father to secure a job at Boeing and after moving my mom and all the children in with his parents and my grandmother on my mother’s side, he was off to Seattle in 1966, this was his first trip outside of the south. After one year my father sent for all of us to move to Seattle in 1967.

We begun our trip in early June 1967 a few day after school ended for the year.  I was 12 years old and my mother had purchased me my first hip rider dress for the trip. My dad had sent money to my mother to purchase us nice outfits for trip. We were so excited...

My cousin Lionel Cameron came to picked us up for the trip to the bus station, I cried as I looked out the back window of the car. I would miss all my cousins and my friends, especially my friend Diane Sims, we were best friends, and her family owned a funeral home in Winnsboro.   There were times at school when I did not have lunch money she would share her weekly lunch tokens with me. I think of her often and I still miss her till this day.

We traveled on Greyhound Bus. Can you imagine 9 children on a bus and had never traveled on a bus before. This trip was very eventful to say the least. As I boarded the bus I felt a bit of excitement and apprehensive about what was to come.

As we travel down the highway, each mile was an adventure for me; my eyes were constantly looking out the window at the country side.

As we entered Amarillo Texas the bus suddenly ran off the road into a ditch. Not only had we never been out of Louisiana, we had never been in a motor vehicle accident. We were all shook up to say the least. Once we were all situated on a new bus, we were on our away again.

As we got further into Texas our bus was pulled over by the police and a lady on the bus was taken off the bus due to a family emergency, apparently her daughter had drowned.

As we continued on our journey; I noticed an African American man on the bus and it was obvious he was not well.  When the bus would stop so that everyone could get out and stretch their legs or buy some goodies. The man would get off and set down on a bench and I noticed he was shaking. Tumbleweeds would blow up near him and it was like he did not see them or did not care. As he climbed back on the bus I noticed he was very frail. We all got back on the bus and I went to sleep and approximately an hour or later, I woke to the police getting on the bus and was proceeding to the bus bathroom. We were told the man had died in the bathroom. I was stunned and sadden as the man was taking off the bus.  I often wonder who that man was and how he got to be on that Greyhound bus and on his last bus ride.

We arrived in Seattle on a Saturday in 1967, along the way we have lost my father, Sister Edna and Brother Edward. My brother Robert “Beau” Coleman did not make the trip with us he died in 1958 at the age of 4.

The story of our very first family bus ride from Louisiana to Washington was an adventure as seen through the eyes of a 12 year old girl. I always wished my brother Beau could have made the trip with us.

Love to mother, my son Derek and all my sibling. Thanks to my cousin Lionel who assisted in giving me my first real adventure.

Lela Coleman