There are many unsung heroes of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Charles Person, the author of Buses Are A Comin’, is one of them. Person is one of two original Freedom Riders that are still living today (alongside Hank Thomas). He was the youngest member of this group of activists who rode buses from Washington, D.C. to the Deep South to test whether two Supreme Court cases that outlawed segregation on buses and bus stations were going to be enforced. Person’s memoir is coming out at the just the right time for the 60th Anniversary of the Freedom Rides and at another time of strong civil rights activism.

Person’s book is a memoir covering his early life to his involvement in the Freedom Rides. It begins with his upbringing on Bradley Street in the Bottoms neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia. He had his first encounter with the KKK when he was a child. He describes it in vivid detail, it would not be his last run-in with the Klan. His memoir continues through his school days and to the time he was considering colleges. His first choice MIT was too expensive to attend and his second choice Georgia Tech would not admit him because of his skin color. Feeling down, his grandfather picks him back up by telling him to “do something”. Readers will find that this mantra is important later on in Person’s life. He ultimately decides to attend Morehouse College. It was at Morehouse that he meets Lonnie King and Julian Bond who get him involved in the Atlanta Student Movement, where they protested segregated lunch counters and succeed in integrating them.

The rest of the book chronicles Person’s experience on the Freedom Rides. He writes about each member who was involved, White and Black, with particular focus on the White members and their motivations for getting involved. This is especially the case for Jim Peck who was a White millionaire who participated in the Freedom Rides. Person does a good job telling what it was like to participate in this movement. Specifically how the Riders did not face a lot of opposition in the earlier stops, but trouble and violence occurred as soon as they arrived in the Deep South. It would be this violence by racist Whites and Klan members that would end their Freedom Ride early. Person gives a brief summary of the other Freedom Rides that picked up where his group left off, but leaves it to those participants to tell their side of the story.

He ends this memoir by covering his life post-Freedom Ride, his service in the military in Cuba (during the Cuban Missile Crisis) and Vietnam. Both experiences could be books of their own. Person is particularly strong when he discusses the cost of his service in the Civil Rights Movement and the military. As a result he suffered injuries and physical issues that continue to effect him to this day. White members of the Freedom Rides also suffered a cost, their families disinherited them and others either currently live or died in poverty. This was good to mention because sometimes we see activists who end up living a lavish lifestyle, but that is usually just the ones who became famous post-movement. Others who tend to be unsung live normal or dismal lives, never really appreciated for the service they did for our country.

Throughout the book Person explicitly makes connections between his activism and the young activists who are involved in various social movements today. Our modern day activists stand on the shoulders of people like Charles Person and the other lesser known activists of the 1950s and 1960s. This will be a great book for young activists to read, to learn they are not alone, that someone has been in their shoes. Students of history and the Civil Rights Movement will enjoy reading this beautifully written book.

This is timely and compelling memoir by the youngest of the Freedom Riders should be more widely read than I suspect it will. Person has a fascinating story to tell and he's done it, in conjunction with Booker, in a manner than pulls the reader in. You might know the outlines of what happened in 1961 but this first person account is especially valuable for its insights into others on the Ride, some of whom became towering figures in the civil rights movement and others of whom might be less familiar. it's filled with grace, even as Person details the horrible abuse the group suffered. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. An important and worthy read.

“In every era, it takes a bus of change to lead the way to new senses of belonging. Thankfully, a change bus is always a comin’.”

This book really surprised me. I wasn’t expecting to be so easily pulled into this memoir. Charles Person was one of the original 13 Freedom Riders during the summer of 1961. This group sought to challenge resistance to desegregating interstate bus travel in the United States.

Mr. Person starts his memoir giving the reader a glimpse into his upbringing in the bottoms of Atlanta. One of the experiences he recounts is a visit his family made to relatives in the country and encountering the Klan on the trip back to Atlanta. His description of the event is from the standpoint of a child and is one of the most vivid encounters I have read.

He then moves to describing his days at Morehouse and how he was active in the Student Nonviolent movement at the Atlanta University Center. This would be his first taste of protest and activism. It also was preparation for the Freedom Ride ahead.

By the times Mr. Person begins recalling the Freedom Ride days, I was on the edge of my seat. He perfectly describes the tension, the smells, the anger, the words he and his fellow riders encountered.

Parts of the book read like a rousing speech Mr. Person must have given before. I am sure he has recounted his story many times over the last 60 years and finally penned into a moving memoir with the assistance of his friend, Richard Rooker.

The points Mr. Person makes in the memoir about the effects of systematic racism on American society are still valid today. This book will appeal to those who seek to learn more about systematic racism in the United States, those who are interested in the nonviolent student movements of the 1960’s and those who enjoy a well written memoir.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press for providing a review copy of this book via Netgalley.

Evocative, painful and inspiring, Charles Person tells us about the innocence of his childhood that morphed into a compelling call to stand up for change. In BUSES ARE A COMING, he describes the call for change that ranged from conditions in the South to President Kennedy’s inauguration. It’s hard to imagine now, with all we’ve recently been through politically, that a President’s call would be to fix the world by individual action. It would come at considerable cost to those that answered.

“For in 1961, we, the students, represented the inch that, if given in to, would lead to the mile white Southerners had no intention of yielding.“

Person challenges readers to stand up to injustice now, as he and other did in the Civil Rights Movement. This book is a necessary addition to our national conversation; it should be widely read. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

I received a widget from the publisher to read this book early. Honestly, I hesitated because it’s just not my type of book (a memoir). But I ultimately thought if they want me to read it, it must be good.

I’m glad I decided to read it! This is such a beautifully written account of one of the Freedom Riders’s perspective on the ride, plus everything leading up to it.

I learned things from this book that no one will ever teach in a history class (in fact Person said he never learned it in history, either). He only learned it while training to become a Freedom Rider - and I only know because of him. I had never even heard of Lonnie King or Irene Morgan before, but they were major contributors to the way our lives are today. They pushed for a better America and they are true unsung heroes.

I knew very little about the Freedom Riders before this book, but now that I can truly understand, I think this is a must-read for everyone.

Person’s parallelism and his extended metaphors are major contributors to this piece of literature. He tells us (in much more eloquent words) that change is only made when people get on the bus. In order to make change, you need to get people on board.

5 stars
Buses Are Coming by Charles Person and Richard Rooker
This needs to be required reading in every school across the globe. This book is beyond incredible. It truly hurt my heart to read this and the horror this man and his fellow freedom riders had to deal with to just be treated as a human being with rights and dignity. Enlightening, heartbreaking and motivating all at the same time. 60 years have passed and so much has changed and yet it seems as nothing has, it is more than a tad discouraging. I am so impressed by Charles Person, he is not just a bitter man filled with hate. He is truly an inspiration..
If you only read one book this year, it needs to be this one.




I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher and Netgalley.

My feelings swelled and burst in this remarkably optimistic memoir of the 1961 Freedom Ride (y'know, the one that ended in a bus burning on the side of the road and attempted lynchings...). Person really calls up every strong leader of the time in a way that makes you want to know more about everyone he encounters.

I had heard of the Freedom Riders, but didn’t realize that it was both black people and white people riding the buses, testing the systems. Buses Are A Comin’ by Charles Person, along with Richard Rooker, is an absolutely fascinating book. Written in a conversational style, I felt like we were having coffee, with Mr. Person telling me his stories from the past. The horrible way he and the others were treated in Alabama by white people for just sitting in any seat on the bus sickened me. It did not surprise me, because we see now 60 years later how some people are reacting to the BLM movement. When the buses come, it is up to all of us to get on them. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is a heartbreaking but necessary memoir about resilience and courage in the face of treacherous adversity and racism. Pearson, a young man standing up for rights that should be naturally given to all, was focused and brave for the pursuit of happiness, equality, and freedom. It is beautifully written by Pearson with Rooker and leaves me more appreciative of those that stood for civil rights during that time against their opposers. Thank you to St. Martin's Press for an a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

50 years ago Charles Person got on a bus with the intent to travel through the deep south from Washington DC all the way to New Orleans, testing to see if states were abiding by the Supreme Court decision that rendered segregation unconstitutional. Despite this federal ruling removing segregation in buses, bus depots, restaurants, schools, etc, southern states were not following these rulings, and instead were often fighting against them. Charles Person was the youngest member to join what became the original Freedom Ride that year, and Buses Are A Comin’ contains his recollections of what led up to his joining the movement, and how it played out for him and the other members.

This memoir is an absolutely gripping read. We learn about Charles Person’s childhood in Atlanta, how he comes of age in an era where people around him are standing up against the status quo, and how he joins the movement himself. I loved the tone of this book, Person’s voice draws you in and provides such a detailed view of not only the Freedom Ride itself but also the people he traveled with, even all these years later. I also really appreciated the parallels that he draws between then and now. In the grand scheme of things 50 years is not that long ago, and while we may seem to have come a long way since the days of visible segregation in the south, the policies and actions of the law and the general public have not really changed very much, and we should all still be jumping on buses as soon as we see them coming. We can all be as brave as Charles Person and everyone else he jumped on those buses with.

Highly recommended read, this is one that I will be reading to my kids in a couple of years. It contains a lot of important history and lessons that we all need to understand and remember and pass on.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a phenomenal book that finely balances our troubled, heartbreaking history, along with the inspiring story of fighting for racial equality. Person takes us into what it was like and to be a part of history that is still unfolding, decades later.

I received an Advanced Readers Copy in exchanged for my honest review.

For me, true heroes aren’t celebrities or athletes who get paid a ton of money to do their jobs. Heroes are people like Charles Person, a man who stood up for his rights despite the threat to his safety, remained peaceful in the face of aggression, and showed love in the face of hate.

This memoir is beautiful, heartbreaking, fascinating, inspiring, and hopeful.

The writing style is conversational, as if we’re sitting down with Charles Person as he tells us about his life and, most prominently, his experience as a Freedom Rider during the early sixties. He writes with rich detail, allowing me to understand, in at least a small way, what it was like to be a Black man living in the south during this tumultuous era.

I don’t have appropriate words for how I feel about this book and all it represents. So read this book. Learn. Grow. Be part of the change.

Charles Person was the youngest person on the 1961 Freedom Ride. He was younger even than the legendary John Lewis, who went on to represent an Atlanta area district in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now, Person tells his story in Buses Are a Comin’: Memoir of a Freedom Rider. It publishes on April 27, 2021 and is available for pre-order now.

Person spends the majority of the book explaining where he came from and how he got involved in the groundbreaking bus ride. Despite the turbulent times, he tells his story in surprisingly quiet and calm manner.

Then, at 75%, we board the bus with him, and the intense drama begins. It is valuable to understand all of the lead up information, but I definitely wish Person had spent more time on the Ride. That part of his experience is like nothing the rest of us have experienced.

Nonetheless, it is interesting to read about Person’s family, his early life in one of Atlanta’s poorest neighborhoods, and how he made it to Morehouse College. His freshman year of college was certainly unlike any other freshman that year, and maybe ever, since it included protesting, being jailed, and joining the Freedom Ride.

Of course, Person feels the influence of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. both from the pulpit and as a civil rights crusader. But Person is perhaps more affected by the lesser-known Lonnie King, a fellow student instrumental in the civil rights activities on Atlanta’s historically Black Colleges and Universities. I appreciated learning about the various student leaders in Atlanta, especially after reading John Lewis’s March Trilogy a few years ago.

My conclusions
Charles Person is an inspiration. As a young man, he looked outside himself and knew he could make the world better by speaking up. And he and his fellow student activists did just that. They put the pressure on, adding to the other work being done in the Movement. This is also happening in today’s Black Lives Matter movement, likely inspired by early young activists like Person and Lewis.

Buses Are a Comin’ is a strong complement to the existing canon of knowledge about this time in history. However, it wasn’t as absorbing as I hoped it would be. Person and his co-author, Richard Rooker offer context and content. But I missed the intense emotions I expected to find there.

Still, if you’re looking for an inside view, it’s worth picking up. My reservations could be just a question of timing of my read.

Acknowledgements
Many thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and the author for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a magical and bittersweet experience. It added a rich layer to the Civil Rights Movement and told what really happened that the history books get wrong. It was a moving and horrifying story and brought me to tears several times to read what had happened in the course of fighting for their rights and lives. This should be required reading for all Americans, a dark and hopeful story of our shameful and uplifting past. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my free arc in exchange for my honest opinion. This book changed me and I’m so grateful for that!

A great first hand account of the 1961 Freedom Rides in protest of the nonenforcement of Supreme Court rulings banning racial segregation on interstate transportation. I've read a lot about that era but never a first-hand account of what it was like to actually be on the bus. Unfortunately it still is very timely today.

5 out of 5 Stars

***ARC received from St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley in exchange for honest review, opinions are all my own. Thank you!***

Sixty years ago Black men and women and their white allies old and young, boarded buses wanting nothing more than to be treated as equals. Some had been in the fight for years while Charles Person took up the call at 18 the youngest of the Freedom Riders of 1961. Reading his account of the ease of the first few days of the ride to the attacks that nearly cost him his and his fellow passengers their lives in harrowing. Its building up to the tension and attacks you know come and yet still caught me off guard.

The book is told in a first person narrative, allowing you as the reader to follow along with Mr. Person and his thoughts. The first half of the book Mr. Person’s young life growing up in Georgia much of it just a normal life. There not much discussion of more overt racism in these chapters in fact there is a scene when the family is traveling home that they come near a caravan of the Ku Klux Klan seeing protection in the porches of strangers that Mr. Person’s describes the scene of the burning crosses driving by as almost beautiful. It is hate viewed through the eyes of a young child and hearing him talk about seeing beauty in something that comes from a place of so much hate. But as Mr. Person’s grows older he sees the racism rearing its ugly head from the language used to not being able to sit at a counter to order a meal.

But times are changing and Mr. Person’s feels that change. He is inspired by not only his own experiences with systemic racism but the experiences and words of others. He draws on their strength that when the time comes to do something, he answers the call to board the buses. There are many times as he is introduced to many of his fellow riders that he wonders what could have brought such an interesting group of people together at times not understanding why an older white retired couple like Mr and Mrs. Bergman or a man of wealth like Jim Peck would want to take the ride with him. While this is a memoir of a man written when he is well into his 70s it reads like you are taking the words straight from 18 y/o Mr. Persons mouth experiencing it for the first time with him.

Which can make it difficult to read, particularly when they reach Alabama greeted by true anger. It is not easy to read and Mr. Person does not shy away from laying everything that happened out there. I have seen the videos and images of the beatings that civil rights activist faced but to be in that moment with him, the fear of being trapped on a bus as a mob sets in to attack him, watching his fellows riders be beaten taking a beating himself to the heart wrenching moment when he is separated from Mr. Peck in the train station and feared for both their lives. Its a memoir, you know the outcome but in that moment he portrays everything so vividly I was truly afraid that they would both be killed.

While they did not finish their ride, these brave men and women set a movement into action that would in many ways still be a movement that goes on to this day as Mr. Person points out. Drawing comparisons to modern day movements from struggles for equality and the end of police brutality led by Black Lives Matter marches and protests, a call for the end to gun violence with the March For Our Lives and the fight against sexual violence with Me Too that while times change the fight never does.

So I'm wrapping up Black History Month with an extraordinary read. Buses Are a Comin' is a book every American should pick up and is one that would be an excellent addition to any high school curriculum. Although it will not be published until April 27th, mark your calendars for this very important release.

This first-hand account of the Freedom Ride is so incredibly eye-opening and heartbreaking. I thought I knew the story. I thought I understood their plight. Oh, but I knew so little... so little about the sacrifices made, about the human dignity they put on the line, and about the deeply ingrained ignorance those poor souls were up against.

Honestly, to think that our nation was at a place that we would treat human beings with such utter disrespect is unfathomable to me. After reading the memoir, I continued to research and the discovery that saddened me most of all was the fact that the ignorance was perpetuated by all southerners including Christians who based their bigoted attitudes on "Biblical truths". As a Christian myself, I find this incomprehensible and abhorrent.

Charles Person, the author of this book, is undoubtedly an American Hero, as are the other brave Freedom Riders that boarded the public buses in 1961. The strength, tenacity, and selflessness it took to board those buses is beyond commendable. It is extraordinary. If it weren't for the Freedom Riders taking this step to test the validity of the Supreme Court landmark decision, Boynton vs. Virginia, our progress to equality would have been impeded that much longer. It saddens me to no end to think that such things had to be done to overcome obstacles that never should have been in place to begin with.

Thank you, Mr. Person, for sharing your story with us. I am better for having learned what you endured to better our nation. Although we have so far to go, this is a testament to the power of conviction and pacifism.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for gifting me with this early review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this digital ARC.

This is well-done memoir from the youngest member of the first Freedom Ride in 1961. Charles Person grew up poor in Atlanta and experienced segregation and discrimination first hand. While studying at Morehouse College, he was inspired by the Greensboro sit-ins to “do something”. So he applied to be part of the first “Freedom Ride” from Washington, DC to New Orleans. Person was one of 12 riders, which was a racially and socially diverse group of men and women of varying ages.

His first-hand account of the hatred, brutality and violence that they endured is upsetting and can be hard to read at times. But we cannot turn away from hard things. There is still work to be done and this memoir helps light the way.

In 1961, a small group of people, both black and white and of a variety of ages from the author at 18 years old up to a retired white couple, got on a variety of buses, planning to head from Washington, DC to New Orleans. The idea was to test what would happen when they sat at various places on the bus, front or back, regardless of their colour. They also (black and white), in some cases, sat together. Supreme Court Decisions in the 1940s (before Rosa Parks) and the 1950s said that anyone should be able to sit anywhere on interstate buses, and that anyone should be able to sit anywhere, use any washroom, order from any food place, etc. inside the depots.

Wow… what an amazing group of very brave people! Granted, some of them didn’t realize how bad it would get (including Charles, though he had grown up in Georgia… but Georgia wasn’t the worst), but this was the first group of “Freedom Riders” that set off a chain of others to continue when they were unable to finish their trips. It’s crazy to me how the KKK was still alive and well in the deep South, and even police were involved. Obviously, this book includes violence (though the Riders themselves had vowed to be nonviolent), and some awful subject matter. It was heart-wrenching at times.

The first chapter tells of the climax of the trip, but then backs up to tell us about Charles’ life growing up. In May 1961 for those two weeks that the first Freedom Ride was happening, he was at the tail end of his first year of college. He had previously been involved in some protests in Atlanta with other college students regarding the segregation of blacks and whites in restaurants and cafes. But this was something else. When I finished, I “had” to check a few videos on youtube.

This book left me speechless.
To be honest, this is a part of history that I knew very little about. I was glad that Charles Person was the person to educate me on the Freedom Rides. This book, told in the first person, was like having a conversation in my living room. Mr. Person went into horrifying detail of his account of his involvement during this time. While at times this book was difficult to read, it is a very important book. It should be a part of U.S. history courses in high school and college.

5 stars.