I think the first thing that comes to mind when I look back on that day is how unseasonably chilly it was for May. It was May 14, 1961: yes, I remember it all as if it had just happened last week. I was sitting on our bus writing a belated Mother's Day letter to my Mama. I remember chuckling at knowing just how agitated she would be until she received it. I'd written a rather long remorseful letter to her hoping it would make up for my forgetfulness. Mama never could hold a grudge very long, though I couldn't help but add a few details from our recent experiences in some of these southern cities. Mama hated hearing about my involvement in the movement. She'd always say to me, “Things is fine the way they is honey, why do you insist on helping stir up troubles.” Mama hated change, and I always quietly resented her for it. Maybe that's why I jumped at the chance to join the SNCC, and then the CORE. Sometimes I think I cared more about proving Mama wrong than I did about our Civil Rights Movement. Nonetheless, I quickly became involved in numerous sit-ins in our city. Yes, I endured the food being poured down my dresses, the cigarettes being put out in my hair, even the occasional blows to the shins I'd received.

But perhaps what hurt the most were the words. When I was younger and kids would pick on me, my Mama would wrap me in her arms and rock me to sleep on her lap singing, “Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” That had to be the biggest most terrible lie my mother had ever told me. Because yes sticks and stone had broken my bones on several occasions. But words, the words they shouted at me. Those words hurt so much worse, than any bone they could ever break in my body. I almost quit after those first hateful words were shouted at me. But something in me told me I could not stop. Something in me told me I had to keep going so that no man, woman or child in this country would ever think they had the right to say such terrible things to anyone.

So I guess that's how I ended up here on this Greyhound bus in Anniston, Alabama, the state most notorious for its ruthless violence. I had tried to put on a brave face like all of my friends, so far these rides had been practically a breeze. But I couldn't shake this sinking feeling in my stomach, I just knew that day was going to be bad. I tried to smile, I swear I did. I must have been the only negro on that bus that wasn't singing for joy. All the white people that had come along looked like they were about ready to defecate on themselves. I guess that made me feel a little bit better, knowing I wasn't the only one feeling cowardly. I had just got done sealing Mama's letter when I heard James Farmer, one of the older leaders yell from his seat, “Folks, looks like we've got our biggest crowd yet!” I sat on my knees to get a better look through the window. James was right; this had defiantly been our biggest crowd since we'd started in D.C. I gulped down my last bit of fear as the mob of angry white folks rushed toward our bus.

“Hey Folks look who I brought you! A bus full of niggers and some n***** lovers!” The bus driver shouted as he came to a sudden stop. By now there must have been at least a hundred or more angry whites crowded around our bus with bats, and bricks shouting at us as they took their pocket knives to the buses tires. “Go home you filthy niggers!” They yelled, “You niggers ain't gonna change our town!” They spat, each word hurting more than the last. And then they did something, something so ugly that it would have probably hurt almost as much as their words. The firebomb came soaring through the window before anyone could react.


The bomb had landed in the middle of the bus and a body shattering shake could be felt by us all. Ironically, the first one off the bus had been the driver, that man had bolted off as if the fires of hell were at this feet. But thanks to James's quick thinking most of the women were able to get off the bus before the fire burned them, though not everyone was so lucky. No sooner had I stepped off the bus then was I whacked from behind my knees with a wooden bat. I sank into the dirt my glasses falling off in the process. I scrambled and searched squinting for what had seemed like an eternity, until I heard one of those white men step on my glasses and say, “Try getting away know N*****,” before spiting on my face. From then on the world was pretty fuzzy, but I could hear the grunts and the moans of my friends as we were beaten, I could hear the brutal blows as the angry white folks bats and bricks made contact with our bones. And as I lay there bruised, broken, and humiliated Mama's voice just kept singing in my head. “Sticks and Stone may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”