1st Negro Bus Driver
Protesters outside of the Greyhound Offices, 1961
1st Negro Bus Driver, Los Angeles, 1963
(Right Image) Charles Reed, first Negro bus driver on Greyhound Bus Lines with Leon Washington (rt.). Reed was one of the first two Negro bus drivers hired on the West Coast by Greyhound Bus Co. in Southern California. Washington investigated discrimination and championed many civil rights causes. He spearheaded the campaign “Don’t Spend Where You Can’t Work.”Leon Washington began his newspaper career as a reporter for the California Eagle in 1932. He eventually left and started his own paper, the Los Angeles Sentinel (originally called The Eastside Shopper.) His cousin, Loren Miller, wrote for the Eagle and earned a reputation as an outspoken defender of African Americans.
Protesting outside of Greyhound Bus Co. offices is James Farmer (left), co-founder and National Director of Congress of Racial Equality (C.O.R.E).
