"I came to Robert Moton at six years old, although I lived about twelve miles away. I was bused in from the first grade. It was a bus that had little or no heat, and then to ride twelve miles, at six years old, to come to the old Robert Moton. One of the things that was interesting—they didn’t close school like they do now for a little bit of snow. We had to walk a mile and a quarter, in knee deep snow, to get to the highway, to catch a non-heated bus, and then ride twelve miles! And that’s at six years old…" Sally Greene
" [How did the bus ride affect your life after high school?] I think it made you more disciplined, and I think that it made your expectations greater, because you think that, if I can come through that, it’s easier on the other side of the world…" Sally Greene
"It [getting to school] did make us more appreciative of what we were getting. Sally was a little closer to the school than we were. There were a lot of occasions when there was inclement weather, once we got here , we learned that school had been closed an hour ago!" Gary Hudson
"We started out something like quarter of seven in the morning. and didn’t get to school until quarter of nine, so we were on the road for a good two and a half hours, just getting to school to get an education." Gary Hudson
"[on the bus ride there] it depends on whether it was winter or summer. In the winter, we all huddled together , because there was no heat on the bus…There was a lot of playing on the bus, but not playing to disrupt the attention of the bus driver. It was just getting together to share what went on during the day with your friends." Gary Hudson
"When you talk about the buses, it would be interesting to know that some of our parents had to go around and provide their own monies to acquire a bus for us to come to school. It wasn’t that the county provided the buses for us." Gary Hudson
"The unique thing was that the bus went from Mt.Airy, it picked up at Long Corner, which is a part of HowardCounty, at that time, and then it came to Winfield. So by the time it got to us, being there was only one bus there were no seats! The bus was full. So you squeezed on the edge of a seat or just did something so that you would be slightly comfortable for that ride." Sally Greene
"The thing about bus system here in the county…while we stood here on the cold highway, and walking that mile and a half, or a quarter, or whatever it was, at least four buses passed us, taking white kids to school, because they picked them up kind of at their door or driveway. They passed us by. And we were determined ot go to school so we kept going." Sally Greene
" We had to leave from White Rock, go to Sykesville, go to Johnsville, then go up to Deer Park Rd., then go down on 140, then come to Westminster. And sometimes we’d get up here and school was closed, and sometimes in bad weather, it’d be dark when we got back home, on account of it took so long on the bus." Gary Hudson
"[the ride] was nice, it was fun. In the winter, we’d cuddle up on the seats to keep warm, and in the summer we took the windows down—back then, we could stick our heads out the window a little bit, and get some air. The bus driver was a nice man. Sometimes in the evenings, if he had to go to Sykesville, he’d let us get off, and go into the ice cream parlor, and we’d get ice cream, then get back on." William Hudson
"[How did the buses carrying the white kids past make you feel?] Maybe I can explain it like this—I guess it was just understood, that it was what was going to be, that they were going to pass you by, and that was it. We were more into what we had to do than what others were doing" Sally Greene
"I don’t think it ever dawned on us that it was unfair. We were interested in getting to Robert Moton, or to the other school in Sykesville (the elementary school). One thing that did take place for us in the Sykesville area was that we had to wait until the white students were picked up and taken to their school, for that driver to come and take us to our school." Gary Hudson
"[Homework on the bus] That was up to us, I guess—we weren’t made to do our homework on the bus—and we was having to much fun, soa whole lot of homework didn’t get done." William Hudson
"[homework] Not on the bus I rode—there wasn’t any space to do that! The bus held first through eleventh grade—high school students, and elementary, and junior high—everyone rode the one bus—there was no separate bus like there is now. Everyone piled on the one bus." Sally Greene
"In the earlier days the [bus] seats went the long way." Gary Hudson
"The first trip [with my basketball team] I took, it cost us $40 for the bus. We went to Central Consolidated in Bel Air and that was a school bus. Later on, we were traveling in a motor coach. It had a radio, heat, air conditioning. So we were traveling in style. Whether you know it or not, Physical Education in Carroll County at that time had to pay for itself. The board of Education didn’t give us any money for athletics, so we had to make enough money to hire a bus. I had to make enough money to pay for officials. We charged admission at the door. We sold hot dogs and sodas at a concession stand. We sold tickets to the athletic association to become a member. That would get you into home basketball games at a reduced fee. Every Thursday we had a recreation night. We played records and sold hot dogs and sodas. That’s some of the ways we earned money." Sidney Shepard
"In order to travel, we had to get a bus. If we had a 40 passenger bus, I carried about 25 students. We sold the extra tickets. If I had a good crowd of people who wanted to buy tickets, I would take 5 boys off the bus and put them in my car. I would sell those 5 tickets, and drive my car to wherever we were playing." Sidney Shepard
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