Event honors man who transported African-American students during segregation

ROCK HILL, S.C. — The State reports that a tribute is being held here for Willie Chisolm, an African-American businessman who bought two used buses to transport rural African-American children to school in the 1950s.

At the time, all schools in the state were segregated by race. School buses were not made available by the state to many African-American children in rural areas, Fred Cathcart, one of the organizers of the event, told the newspaper.

Chisolm drove the school buses he bought, and students did as well. The buses took students to school for whatever money a child’s family could afford, or for free if they could not afford to pay at all, according to the news outlet.

Many of the people who rode the buses that Chisholm provided will honor him at the event.

Chisholm died in 1962, before the schools integrated in 1966.

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