Freedom Bus Rides Through the South County

An AC Transit bus featuring student artwork inspired by the civil rights movement traveled through the East Bay Tuesday.

Local politicians joined educators on their visit to the “Freedom Bus” at Lorin Eden Elementary School in Hayward, one of three East Bay destinations for the vehicle.

The fully-wrapped bus features art depicting the 1955 Montgomery, AL bus boycott that propelled Rosa Parks and the civil rights stuggle into the national consciousness. The artwork, done by Berkeley High School students, features the words, “The power of one inspires change for all.”

Artwork created by two students from Lorin Eden and one from Southgate Elementary School in Hayward, along with a piece made by incarcerated youth at the Butler Academic Center at the Juvenile Justice Center in San Leandro, are displayed inside the bus. The posters will appear in more than 200 buses throughout the AC Transit system.

Jessican Guan and Lawrence Duong, fifth and sixth graders at Eden Elementary, received awards for their artwork during the event.

“It’s an excellent example of what an arts-integrated curriculum can produce,” said Sheila Jordan, superintendent of Alameda County schools. “Art makes learning visible. Kids learn best hands-on.

“They’re creating their interpretation of the Civil Rights Movement … and learning the relevance of history in their own lives,” she said before speaking at Eden Elementary.

Jordan was the only non-African American speaker at the bus’s second stop of the day at the Juvenile Justice Center in San Leandro. She told the youth present that the abundance of African American leaders was a result of the civil rights movement but also said that more progress needed to be made due to the racial inequity of the justice system.

Union City Mayor Mark Green, who is also the Alameda County Transportation Commission chairperson, was one of the guest speakers at Eden Elementary. Eden's cafeteria was filled with 100 students in the school’s after-school Youth Enrichment Program.

A substitute teacher, Green has substituted at Eden Elementary and other Hayward and Union City schools. He noted the importance of extra-curricular and co-curricular programs such as arts and sports.

The Freedom Bus is a representation of transportation, art and history combined in one, Green said.

Storyteller Awele Makeba was the featured guest for the Hayward event.

She told the story of the Montgomery bus boycott through the eyes of women who were instrumental in the civil rights movement, including Claudette Colvin, Mary Louise Smith and Rosa Parks.

“[The Freedom Bus] draws on historical victories and transportation equity,” Makeba said an interview following the event. “Why the buses? Because it was an everyday slap in the face where people’s humanity was not seen or recognized, where they were treated as second-class citizens.”

At the end of her performance, she asked the elementary school students to make a call to action.

“I promise to take a stand and say that’s not fair, that’s not right,” the students pledged.