Interview With Freedom Rider Genevieve Hughes Houston (2009)

to look them in the eye. It seemed provocative, and I simply chose to ignore them. So I kept on reading my book. I'm not sure I understood a word of what I was reading. And after a while, there was some wind-up breaking going on, right opposite to where I was sitting, and a man who was next to my side of the bus, reaching his pocket and pulled out a gun and sort of waved it around a little bit. I saw that, but again I was trying to to see it out of the corner of my eye, because I didn't want him to think that he was frightening me, which he wasn't at that point. There were two men in the back of the bus white, in suits, and I didn't understand why they were there. They weren't part of our group, and one of them, at least, exited. I imagine the other one did too, although I didn't notice. And after a while, he shot a gun into the air, and the crowd backed off. They

had been holding the front door shut. (off camera speaker:) Let me start us a little bit over. Do you remember when you realize that they had thrown The incendiary device, the bomb onto the bus, how did you realize that something different was happening? They weren't just breaking windows. They weren't just screaming. They weren't just just banging on the bus. Genevieve Hughes Houghton: I was sitting opposite the window, which was broken, and a man shoved a bundle of something in, which was, I realized later, burning, and it gave off a great deal of smoke right then and there. And I did not know it had the potential of burning up the bus, but it obviously was on fire, and pretty soon the whole back of the bus was black. You couldn't even see in front of your face. And I spoke to an innocent passenger who was sitting there and said,

I'm sorry, I got you into this, and he said, so am I. And Jimmy Robinson yelled something to us like, "get off the bus". And I went forward, and he opened a window, and he and I both exited through that window. And I remember I dropped the book, and I hope it did somebody out there some good, because I didn't pick it up again. And we were on one side, and most of the freedom riders were on the other side, so I did not witness anything that happened. I read accounts that said there was an attack. I was not aware of that. And I missed some of what happened, because a woman invited me into her home to wash up. I guess my face was covered with soot. (off camera speaker): So you don't remember the little girl getting the water, anything like that, you weren't