Personal Narrative: My Normal Cleveland Avenue Bus

“One day I was walking down the block at like three in the morning, I was headed towards the J train, and I saw these two African American men fallowing me and sort of knew what they wanted of me, I had heard so much stories I was like I’m about to be another statistic. But thank the lord, I saw this lady in a bus stop as I was walking and I made this fake conversation with her to make it seem like I knew the lady and the strategy worked and afterwards the two guys came next to us and just kept walking, turning around as they were walking to

then approached the vehicle driver’s side of the vehicle and noticed the two children. I noticed they were both covered in blood and Genesis Freeman was placed face down in the lap of Serenity Freeman. I could see the driver’s window was partly down and a pack of New Port cigarettes were on the ground next the rear door. I also noticed a child sock was on the ground on the passenger’s side of the vehicle. A child shoe was also located on the ground prior to the vehicle. I then proceeded back to my vehicle and was advised by Sergeant P. Orellano to escort Tillman Freeman III to Hoke County Sheriff’s Department. Detective J. Figueroa and I then followed a Hoke County Deputy to the Sheriff’s Office to interview Tillman Freeman III.

Have you ever heard of Rosa Parks or Ruby Bridges?Well these women are extra special.Rosa got arrested from not giving her seat up and Ruby was incredible and didn’t get scared when she was the only black girl in a whole white school and was getting yelled at by angry mobs.

On December 7, 1956, I was getting on a bus headed towards New York. As I was trying to find a seat, I saw an open seat right in front of the white people section and sat in it. A few moments after I sat down, a few other men got on the bus. After all of them filled the rest of the white seats, one man didn’t have a seat. After the bus driver got up and saw the man standing in the middle of the aisle, he got up and told all of the African-American people in the first row to get up and let this man have a seat. So I slowly got up and moved around the lady that I sat next to. I expected her to get up along with me but she remained still. After I had made it to the back of the bus where all of the other African american people stood, THe bus

Many people move around to different states throughout their life, and I have had the opportunity to live in what feels like two different worlds. I have spent most of my life in Bradenton, Florida, but at the age of ten I moved to the small town of Cleveland in the north east Georgia mountains. The two towns are completely different in my opinion and only someone who has lived there would completely understand what I mean when I say two different worlds. The weather, the people, and the different opportunities are just a few of the differences between the two towns.

I was 16 years old when i moved to Cleveland. I had moved from California, a place that everyone thinks of as a area of movie making, opportunities, rich people with fancy lamborghinis and ferraris, well it's nothing like that where i come from. Compton california, the place that you can see 14 year old gang members with guns, get shot just for wearing the wrong color, or just walking down the street like my mom. I never really meet my dad he got locked up when i was 3 on an assault charge so i had to move in with my grandparents in Cleveland.

Lotes en Cleveland Heights. Sucio, basura por todas partes. Pero imagine uno como un jardín. Eso era verdad. (Lots in Cleveland Heights. Dirty, trash everywhere. But imagine one as a garden. That was true.)

Driving up to Cooperstown through the gates, I was excited to see the variety of different license plates. Nevada, Texas, North and South Carolina, New York, Tennessee, Ohio, Virginia and many more filled up the parking lots. While driving through and getting directed to my barrack I saw tons and tons of kids. After settling in, my team and I walked around in awe listening to boys from other parts of the country talking. Most of the time I would laugh to myself because of the accents the southerners had. When it came to playing, the moment I stepped onto the field I felt like I was a professional. The grass so cleanly cut and the dirt so perfectly grated. The sun beating on my neck and the beautiful summer breeze made perfect baseball weather.

Have you ever seen the TV show the “Walton’s?” If you have, then you will definitely be able to identify how unique the place was where I was raised. I was raised in North Arkansas in a small community called Onia. In fact, the road that I lived on was called Lawrence Road. It was named this because all of my relatives lived down this road. My Grandpa, who is now a retired Baptist preacher, lived down this road along with his brothers and sisters. The church that I grew up going to was also pastored by my grandfather for over thirty years and it was about two miles down the road. The community bordered the Ozark National Forest so it was very rural and isolated. Most of the traffic on Lawrence Road was mainly the people who lived

Despite the fact that I was a Black girl, youngest of four children, and raised by a single mother in central Texas, I never felt different. My sense of sameness and security was ripped away on one Sunday evening I will never forget. During my junior year in high school, I was walking to the neighborhood corner store with two of my classmates, who were also Black. We rounded the corner down the main street, and noticed a rowdy

“Turn the wheel baby! You have to get the car parallel to the curb!” my mother yelled as I failed yet again to maneuver into the parking space.

I felt the bumping and heard the bus frame squeal quietly as we were on the journey to destination. We were in Detroit, Michigan for a mission trip. It was a new place full of new things for me to experience. And the most eye-opening experience for me was when we helped a neighborhood clean out a disastrous and neglected alley.

I live in the city of Detroit very near the Hamtramck, michigan. My address puts me in the 14th Congressional District which incl7des but is not limited to the cities of Detroit, Hamtramck, Southfield, Farmington Hills, and st.clair shores. Brenda L. Lawrence is my Congressional representative. Her political affiliation is the Democratic party.

On that day, I was riding the bus home from work at the mill and observed as a group of white people got on the bus. I then managed to sit down in the seat next to Rosa Parks. She asked, “Who are you?”. I said, “ I am Andy Morrow, a poor nobody black person trying to survive in a racist population of white people. Anyway, who are you?”. Soon after that, their was a single white man standing and all the other spots on the white’s side

From the end of my junior year through my senior year I have been driving up to Portland, usually bringing my dad or some friends to help out with Bridgetown Ministry's Nightstrike. I have helped out with this organization for eight weeks on Thursday nights, reaching out and building relationships with Portland's homeless. In the mix of people there are always faces you recognize from past weeks which gives you a chance to grow deeper relationships with them. There was a little 4 year old boy named Alex that I would see every week and every time he would show me the new tricks he had taught his dog or his tricks on toys like his skateboard. If I did not have so many prior commitments on Thursdays, I would love to be down there every week.