Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Buses Are a Comin' cover art

Buses Are a Comin'

By: Charles Person, Richard Rooker
Narrated by: Landon Woodson
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Claudette Colvin cover art
We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders cover art
Righteous Troublemakers cover art
A Dream Too Big cover art
How Far to the Promised Land cover art
Let Justice Roll Down cover art
Malcolm X cover art
SNCC cover art
My Brother Moochie cover art
The Book of Rosy cover art
Wild Hope cover art
Love & Courage cover art
A Drop of Midnight cover art
While the World Watched cover art
My Grandfather's Son cover art
Letters to the Sons of Society cover art

Summary

"Narrator Landon Woodson does a masterful job delivering Person's audiobook - which is both Person's own coming-of-age story and the story of a nation trying to reckon with racism.... This important audiobook is shared exquisitely by Woodson." (AudioFile Magazine)

A firsthand exploration of the cost of boarding the bus of change to move America forward - written by one of the Civil Rights Movement's pioneers.

At 18, Charles Person was the youngest of the original Freedom Riders, key figures in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement who left Washington, D.C. by bus in 1961, headed for New Orleans. This purposeful mix of black and white, male and female activists - including future Congressman John Lewis, Congress of Racial Equality Director James Farmer, Reverend Benjamin Elton Cox, journalist and pacifist James Peck, and CORE field secretary Genevieve Hughes - set out to discover whether America would abide by a Supreme Court decision that ruled segregation unconstitutional in bus depots, waiting areas, restaurants, and restrooms nationwide.

Two buses proceeded through Virginia, North and South Carolina, to Georgia where they were greeted by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and finally to Alabama. There, the Freedom Riders found their answer: No. Southern states would continue to disregard federal law and use violence to enforce racial segregation. One bus was burned to a shell, its riders narrowly escaping; the second, which Charles rode, was set upon by a mob that beat several riders nearly to death.

Buses Are a Comin’ provides a front-row view of the struggle to belong in America, as Charles Person accompanies his colleagues off the bus, into the station, into the mob, and into history to help defeat segregation’s violent grip on African American lives. It is also a challenge from a teenager of a previous era to the young people of today: become agents of transformation. Stand firm. Create a more just and moral country where students have a voice, youth can make a difference, and everyone belongs.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

"Shot through with vivid details of beatdowns, arrests, and awe-inspiring bravery, this inspirational account captures the magnitude of what the early civil rights movement was up against.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

"A vital story, this memoir is also an instructive gift to future generations fighting for change.” (Kirkus, starred review)

©2021 Charles Person and Richard Rooker (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

More from the same

What listeners say about Buses Are a Comin'

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.