This Columbus bus driver found a way to get Black students to school during segregation
A one-block stretch of a Columbus street was renamed Wednesday in honor of a former school bus driver.
In front of Carver High School, Eighth Street from Illges Road to Rigdon Road now is called “Ed Snell Jr. Street” after Columbus Columbus Council approved the honorary designation recommended by the city’s Board of Honor.
“I’m honored,” Snell’s granddaughter, Gail Thompkins, told the Ledger-Enquirer before the ceremony unveiling the new street signs. “My granddaddy meant so much to me, growing up. … He met the need for children who didn’t have a ride to get to school.”
Snell broke through discrimination to provide transportation for underserved children during his 28 years (1950-78) driving buses for the Muscogee County School District, according to the application Thompkins submitted to the board.
Before the court-ordered desegregation of MCSD in 1971, Snell convinced the administration to permit him to take Black high school students to school when those routes hadn’t been available for them in areas such as East Highland and neighborhoods along Schatulga Road, Flat Rock Road and Northstar Drive.
But he had to wake up extra early to drive those students to Carver before fulfilling his regular route for elementary school.
The high school students respected him so much, Thompkins said, he didn’t have to chastise them or intervene in misbehavior while driving them to football games.
“He showed love through his actions,” she said. “… He just gave them a reassuring smile.”
And elementary school students loved him so much, Thompkins said, they created a supersized get-well card and signed their names on the poster when illness prevented him from driving their bus for a while.
“That made his day,” she said.
Snell died at 70 from prostate cancer in 1983, Thompkins said.
In a 1978 letter to Snell, wishing him well in retirement, MCSD assistant superintendent for business affairs Nathan Patterson noted Snell had driven school buses more than 500,000 miles without a serious accident.
“Thank you very much for your cooperation and services,” Patterson wrote. “Thank you also for safely transporting thousands of students to and from school in a safe and acceptable manner.”
This story was originally published August 4, 2021 at 3:50 PM.
