By Phyllis Allen
Dallas, TX – It's been 30 years since court-ordered desegregation resulted in the busing of white children into colored schools. Going back to discuss it now brings a lot of different memories to different people, but when I think of busing, I think of the Jones boys from Grapevine, Texas. The Jones family was a large one with lots of boys - really good-looking boys, by the way. But what I remember most about them is that, long before court-ordered busing, one of the Jones boys would drive the Grapevine ISD school bus up to the front door of our high school, I.M. Terrell, a colored high school in Fort Worth. These colored Grapevine students were bused into Fort Worth on yellow buses with high school students that doubled as drivers. On their way, the buses would pass schools in Grapevine, Hurst, Euless, Bedford, Birdville and Haltom City - schools that they weren't allowed to attend because they were colored. They would file out, and he would then park the bus on the side of the school and come into school himself.
Until 30 years ago, colored students from as far away as 60 miles left the communities of Grapevine, Mansfield, Cleburne, Granbury, Weatherford and other surrounding towns to make the trip into Fort Worth, the closest town with colored schools. At I.M. Terrell on each school day, there would be buses parked on the north side of the school awaiting their student passengers for the long trip home. Ironically, when the subject of court-ordered busing comes up, people begin to bemoan the fact that they were asked to make a maybe 30-minute bus trip into what they deemed dangerous neighborhoods.
There's an old blues song that says it's an ill wind that doesn't blow somebody some good. For some children, the ill wind of busing blew away the comfort of neighborhood schools. Busing meant that they had to rise early and stand in the cold dark winter morning waiting for a bus that drove them past schools that were within walking distance of their homes in order to satisfy a well intentioned but ill-conceived desegregation plan. But that same wind blew some colored kids into the newly-found luxury of five to ten-minute walks to neighborhood schools from which they were previously barred.
I often wonder what happened to the Jones boys of Grapevine, Texas. I wonder how it affected them that they had the responsibility of getting not only themselves but also their classmates to school and home again each day. I wonder if any them realize what a unique situation that was. Mostly I wonder if we had the chance to do it all again would we do it the same way.
Phyllis is a writer from Fort Worth.