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HISTORY HAPPENS EVERY DAY

Everyone of any age at all, whether they realize it or not watches history in the making every day. Most are probably not thrown directly into a history making event such as being present when a world leader was assassinated or other equally historic events.

I, myself just over the 60 mark, had no idea that witnessing the 'freedom riders' get off buses in Montgomery Alabama would be just such an event or be etched indelibly on my mind. I just knew, at the time, I was a young woman, married less than year, pregnant and was only trying to get to my job at Southern Bell Telephone located on Washington Ave. My usual route was to walk from our apartment on Court Street downtown past the Greyhound Bus Station to Washington Avenue. Court Street was cordoned off, both ways, although it was one way out of town, so to get to work, I had to walk up Court, across another street and then down Perry. This route was either used or pass the armed National Guard soldiers and be escorted to the door of Southern Bell. I had a problem with walking beside an armed soldier, not as in a pistol in a holster, but loaded rifles cradled in the crook of their arms. To say the least, I was surprised at this great southern city having some kind of militant problem like this.

I knew in the back of my mind that this sort of thing happened but not to me. I was from a small town called Eclectic, about 30 miles northeast of the capitol of Alabama. I was a fifteen year old sophomore in high school when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on that bus. We read about these incidents, but nothing touched us much in 1956, except our folks, most of them anyway, worrying about getting the cotton planted, picked and sold. Our schools did not intergrate until my middle child was in first grade. My husband was a police officer in our small town and stayed on duty all day, but we had no problem in the late 60s with intergration.

I had moved to Montgomery in 1959, just to simply get a job and help support my widowed mother. I met a GI from Pennsylvania, married and set up house-keeping in an apartment at 435 S. Court Street. (I always thought that maybe Jefferson Davis might have lived there at one time, the house was so old).

For a small town girl, I guess I enjoyed the big city, but it took getting used to. I worked an evening shift at Southern Bell and always walked to and from work. I would pass the Greyhound Bus Station about 10:30 every night walking home after my evening

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