Excerpt from Buses Are a Comin' by Charles Person, Richard Rooker, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I know now our school was nothing like schools in other sections of Atlanta. Desks were hand-me downs—worn and battered. Classroom sets of books were rare. Teachers gave us experiences more than book learning. Experiences such as watching caterpillars grow into butterflies.

"Caterpillars are like you," my fourth-grade teacher told us one day. "They start off crawling and learn to fly."

That was all I needed. Back home I practiced. Wrapped in a blanket for a cocoon, I stood on the first step of the apartment building going up to 5B, struggled to get free of the blanket, and jumped. Rewrapped in the blanket, I tried the second step. Then the third. I didn't get past the third one.

I didn't learn to fly, but I did learn to love school and love learning. In elementary and high school our teachers knew what it took to be successful, so they disciplined us and placed high expectations on us. They were kind, and they were tough. They paved a path to our future prosperity by believing like the poet Robert Browning that nothing was beyond our grasp except our reach. They expected us—expected me—to reach. So, I did.

Some days I didn't run home as soon as school was dismissed to fill my stomach. Some days my friends T.C., Felix, and I walked to Fire Station 6 on Auburn Avenue—a few houses west of the King home. The firemen let us sit in chairs inside the station and watch them. Maybe we were a curiosity to them. Maybe they were being friendly. Maybe they let us pretend being firemen because they knew we could never be one. No black firemen existed in Atlanta when T.C., Felix, and I sat in those chairs. But we loved to watch. And dream. Just like flying.

Firemen slid down the pole. We wanted to do that. Fire Station 6 had a dalmatian. I wanted a dalmatian. The firemen cleaned the station till it was spotless. They moved with purpose when an emergency came. All that—the fire pole, the dog, the sparkle, the character—intrigued me. It was something I wanted to be a part of.

When the firemen came back from a fire, the smell of smoke stoked my imagination. The smell of coffee in Station 6 made me want to be an adult. The heavy coats, the hard helmets with curved rims, and the big rubber boots made me forget about butterflies.

Some nights in bed next to Jimmy Dale, I tried to dream about being an Atlanta fireman. My dream seemed impossible. I told my dream to Mom. She embraced my dream and did not share my opinion.

"You can do anything you want to do, Charles. Anything."

It was as if Ruby Person could see the future. It was a wide-open future even though her life had been closed. For Jimmy Dale and me, she spoke the language of possibility. As I did not see the soot or smell the foul odors of Bradley Street, Mom did not see current limitations. She chose to smell the cooking inside the doors of 5B, not the decay outside them. Becoming a fireman was possible. At a time when society denied so much, she encouraged me to imagine and believe and fly. She envisioned a future that society could not yet see. She ignited a flame in me even though her flame had been doused as a fireman pours water on a burning building or as Atlanta drowned the dreams of 40 percent of its citizenry.

I never became a fireman. I never sat in those then-forbidden seats, but Mom's unalterable belief in achievement would direct me in a future year to take another forbidden seat I could not have imagined when longing to be a fireman. It was not a seat on a fire truck, but on a bus. A freedom bus. A Freedom Ride.

* * *

Mom was an anchor in my life and a hero. So was Papa. But Papa was not my dad. Papa was the name I called my mom's dad. Edward Booker lived on Irwin Street, two blocks north of Bradley Street. At that point in life, I walked everywhere I needed to be—friends' houses, school, church, store. And Papa and Grandma's.

Excerpted from Buses Are a Comin' by Charles Person and Richard Rooker. Copyright © 2021 by Charles Person and Richard Rooker. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.