An organizer directed him to a seat near the front. Others were told to sit in interracial pairs. The driver paid no attention to the Riders, and the regular passengers seemed no more than mildly curious. George opened the book his mother had given him and read the first line.

A moment later the organizer directed one of the women to sit next to George. He nodded to her, pleased. He had met her a couple of times before and liked her. Her name was Maria Summers. She was demurely dressed in a pale gray cotton frock with a high neckline and a full skirt. She had skin the deep, dark color of George’s mother’s, a cute flat nose, and lips that made him think about kissing. He knew she was at the University of Chicago Law School, and like him was about to graduate, so they were probably the same age. He guessed she was not only smart but determined: she would have to be, to get into Chicago Law with two strikes against her, being both female and black.

He closed his book as the driver started the engine and pulled away. Maria looked down and said: “To Kill a Mockingbird. I was in Montgomery, Alabama, last summer.”

Montgomery was the state capital. “What were you doing there?” George said.

“My father’s a lawyer, and he had a client who sued the state. I was working for Daddy during the vacation.”

“Did you win?”

“No. But don’t let me keep you from reading.”

“Are you kidding? I can read anytime. How often does a guy on a bus have a girl as pretty as you sit down next to him?”

“Oh, my,” she said. “Someone warned me you were a smooth talker.”

“I’ll tell you my secret, if you want.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“I’m sincere.”

She laughed.

He said: “But please don’t spread that around. It would spoil my reputation.”

The bus crossed the Potomac and headed into Virginia on Route 1. “You’re in the South, now, George,” said Maria. “Are you scared yet?”

“You bet I am.”

“Me, too.”

The highway was a straight, narrow slash across miles of spring-green forest. They passed through small towns where the men had so little to do that they stopped to watch the bus go by. George did not look out of the window much. He learned that Maria had been brought up in a strict churchgoing family, her grandfather a preacher. George said he went to church mainly to please his mother, and Maria confessed that she was the same. They talked all the way to Fredericksburg, fifty miles along the route.

The Riders went quiet as the bus entered the small historic town, where white supremacy still reigned. The Greyhound terminal was between two red-brick churches with white doors, but Christianity was not necessarily a good indication in the South. As the bus came to a halt, George saw the restrooms, and was surprised that there were no signs over the doors saying WHITES ONLY and COLORED ONLY.