I met the East Bus Riders today

[JacoBison]

As the visit yesterday to Southern Seminary was a surprise visit, I didn't find out they were in town until last night. I met Kyle (and the driver and another guy whose name I don't remember - never been good with remembering names when meeting a lot of people at once) for lunch and then went back to the hotel to meet with some of the other riders.

That was the long way of saying that our visit was way too short. Had I known they were coming to town I could have arranged home-cooked meals for everyone and probably had dozens of Southern Seminary alumni join them for the sit-in. Kyle liked that idea a lot, but they had to keep the visit a surprise so the Seminary wouldn't stop them from entering. The story made front page of the Metro section of the news paper. The building where the sit in took place is where my mother had her office when she worked for the Seminary in the early nineties.

So anyway, it was really cool to talk to some of the folks about their experience at OBU, Southern and the ride in general. I printed copies of my letter to the OBU student paper and Kyle and (the girl whose name I can't remember) hugged me in gratitude.

I once had a job that kept me on the road for five years and so I am slightly familiar with tour life. Every time we came back to a town our clients told us how they were impacted by our previous visit. But we never got to see that because we were on to the next town. I think its the same with the Equality Riders. So many people are influenced by their visit but they don't get to see the results of their work.

We could have sat in the hotel lobby and talked for hours, but the bus had to leave. From left to right: Joey, the nice girl whose name I can't remember, me, Greg and Kyle.

[tdogg]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing your experience and the pic. Cool looking bus too!

[Emproph]

Especially the picture, that's awesome.

-Patrick

[JacoBison]

You are welcome - glad you liked it. To read more, visit the Activism Forum Post on the topic where I link some of the news articles about the visit.