Leadership Series

It was late afternoon in Montgomery, and the air inside the bus tasted of exhaust and stale sweat. The windows rattled in their frames with every heavy grind of the transmission, doing little to move the thick Alabama heat. I had ridden that route enough times to know the unspoken choreography by heart. The bus was divided by an invisible line that shifted with every stop, enforced by a rigid set of rules we had all been conditioned to accept without question. When the driver barked his order, the air in the bus seemed to pull taut. The row where she sat was commanded to clear. Three figures stood immediately, their heads bowed to the familiar weight of the system.