"COLORED Seated In Rear"/Change Needed - by Steve McGraw

Steve McGraw with his wife Sharon in Dungarvan, Ireland

Steve McGraw is the son of Jessie R. McGraw, son of Oza, son of Joel, son of Robert Lee "Jabo," son of John & Mahala. In addition to serving as the Roanoke County (VA) Clerk of the Circuit Court since 1992 Steve is also the past President of the US McCraw Family Association (USMFA). As you may or may not know, John changed his and thus our family name from McCraw to McGraw in the late 1800's. It was Steve's DNA that the USMFA used when it proved our link to the Clan McGrath in Ireland. 

Last summer at the International McGrath Clan Gathering in Dungarvan, Ireland, Steve was awarded with our Clan's highest award, The Medal of Echthighern. The award, was named for our ancestor who was the brother of the Brian Boru who was King of Ireland and is given as recognition for contributions to society and enhancement of the McGrath name.

Steve submitted this lesson he learned about racism from

his father at a very early age, "and it stuck..."

CHANGE NEEDED

It was a glorious mid-morning in the summer of 1955 in the Roanoke Valley of Virginia, and I was about to embark on one of my all-time favorite adventures – riding the bus with my dad at the wheel!  I could hear the bus – my dad’s bus – laboring up the hill and approaching the stop at the corner of Berkeley Avenue and Dudding Street where my mother waited patiently with me while I danced in place beside her. 

At age five, everything was a wonder to me; robins bobbing for worms on the fresh-cut lawns, hummingbirds swooping around flowers, battling each other for sips of nectar, and the distant sounds of Norfolk and Western coal trains chugging along the nearby Roanoke River.   

My mother held my left hand tightly as my right hand gripped a brown paper bag – containing two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, each expertly wrapped in wax paper – that would be lunch for my dad and me later that day.  How much better could life be?!

Finally, the huge red and white Roanoke Safety Motor Transit Company bus loomed up before me and came to a stop as the accordion doors opened, revealing my dad sitting behind the big black steering wheel, grinning at me and waving me aboard.  

“Come on up, Stevie!” he laughed as my mother half-lifted me up to the first step, let go of my hand and reminded me to use the worn brass handrail as I climbed up the few tall stairs to the top of the landing.

“Back by 4:00?” she asked my dad.

“Yep, see you then…you know what to do, son…” my father reminded me, making sure that I was securely in place behind him on the side-facing seat before he waved at my mother, closed the door, shifted the bus into first gear and expertly balanced the clutch against the gas pedal in order to pull smoothly away from the curb.  Now the adventure began.

In particular, I enjoyed riding up and down the hills, the bus performing like a slow roller coaster, making my stomach feel funny and quickly changing the outside view – sky, trees, roads, buildings, houses, sky...  At the designated stops, whenever there was a future passenger standing in wait, my father would bring the bus to a halt, open the door and welcome each one with a “hello” or a “good morning;” he even knew some of them by name, and some of them knew him, too.  

To the immediate right of the steering wheel was the windowed fare box fitted with four round slots in the top and a hand crank on the side, and passengers would drop special tokens or the correct coins into the box as they boarded the bus.  Occasionally a passenger needed change, and a chrome coin changer was mounted next to the fare box for that purpose, allowing my father to take their bills and give them the coins in return.  In addition, if a passenger had a paper transfer slip, my father would place it on the spindle projecting from the bus’s dash.  It was all very orderly, and the coin changer – where quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies would magically appear from the bottom of each chrome tube with the push of a small lever - was my favorite.    

Steve's Dad's magical coin changer.

When a passenger wished to get off the bus, he or she would pull down on an overhead strap mounted along either side of the ceiling of the long vehicle, making a brief, low buzzing sound at the front of the bus to let my dad know that he needed to stop at the next opportunity.  

This morning, everything seemed to be going fine until the elderly black lady got on the bus.  As she struggled to climb up the stairs while carrying a large shopping bag, my father said the usual hello to her and she responded in kind with a smile, carefully dropped a token into the fare box and then took two careful steps backward to settle heavily into the side-facing seat across from me at the front of the bus.  She nodded and smiled at me, then closed her eyes and appeared to fall asleep almost instantly as my father shut the door and moved the bus on down the street.

A few stops later, a white businessman – wearing a coat and tie and shiny shoes - got on the bus, dropped some coins into the fare box, gave a surprised, stern look to the sleeping black lady, and then whispered something into my father’s ear.  My dad’s reaction was immediate, and it startled me as he half-rose in his seat to most of his 6’4” stature and sharply admonished this new passenger, “If you don’t like it, you can sit at the back of the bus!”

This new passenger was equally startled by my father’s reaction to him, and he hurriedly walked to the center of the bus before dropping sharply into a front-facing seat there.  A few blocks later, the businessman pulled down hard on the overhead cord, creating a long, loud buzzing sound and then released the cord with a snap. 

When my dad brought the bus to a halt, the disgruntled passenger exited from the side door, probably not wanting to walk past my father or the black lady sitting at the front of the bus.  Eventually, the black lady exited the bus in a neighborhood where others like her lived, and the rest of the day went as usual with most of this adventure still being fun for me and my dad.  

When we stopped for a late lunch on a quiet, tree-lined street, the bus was empty and my father moved to the seat across from me as we enjoyed our sandwiches, and dad shared water from his thermos with me.  

Finally, I had to ask the question that had been burning inside me for the past couple of hours; “Daddy, why did you get so mad at that man?”

My father stared at me for several long seconds, probably trying to decide how best to explain the situation to me, and then he pointed at a sign centered up over the bus’s front windshield.

“See that sign?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“It says:  Colored seated in rear…” he explained, “…and the man who got on the bus wanted me to make the black lady move to the back of the bus.”

“Why?” I asked innocently, not understanding the true gravity of the situation until years later, by which time my respect for my parents had continued to grow as I recalled similar memories of my father and mother.

“Ignorance,” my father said.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means that some people think they are better than other people, but they’re not – we’re all the same on the inside…” he said, “…and never forget that, son…”

“OK, daddy.”