*Two Black men in Minnesota claim a white bus driver order them to sit in the back of the bus.
According to Inforum, Jarvis Greenhill and Xavier Davis were trying to get home on a public bus on July 13 when the driver told them to take seats in the back of the empty bus. As they boarded the Jefferson Lines bus to downtown Fargo, North Dakota, the two passengers displayed their e-tickets and were told to sit in the back.
“I’ve seen it on TV. I’ve seen it in the history books, but I never actually had a white person tell me to go to the back,” Davis said. “Two Black guys just so happened to be getting on the bus together. This is a true story in 2023.”
Davis reportedly recorded the incident with the driver identified as Koby McFarlane, who has worked for the Jefferson Lines bus company since 2022.
“Take your seat before I have you arrested,” the driver can be heard shouting in Davis’ recording, according to Inforum.
“I don’t want to get wrapped up in that Black Lives Matter deal,” Greenhill said. “This is just human decency. I am just dumbfounded.”
As Inforum reports, McFarlane explained to Davis and Greenhill that he loads passengers from rear to front. But since this process is not one that two Black males had ever heard of before, as frequent passengers on Jefferson Lines, they seemingly turned it into a racial issue.
Despite their fear of being kicked off the bus or the issue turning into a criminal situation, both men obeyed the driver’s instructions.
“It is traumatizing to go to jail for things you didn’t do,” Davis said. “I didn’t want to go to jail for something I didn’t do because I was in the right.”
The incident prompted an investigation within the Jefferson Lines bus company.
“We need to determine what happened and what future training we need to do, if there is needed training at all, for that driver and any other driver in our company. We take this seriously,” said Kevin Pursey, the Director of Sales.
“I do know that the driver did communicate back to dispatch regarding something about this. It’s important for us to do the full investigation to know if there was something prior to it,” Pursey said.
OTHER NEWS: Florida’s Modern Day Fugitive Slave Act | VIDEOs
We Publish News 24/7. Don’t Miss A Story. Click HERE to SUBSCRIBE to Our Newsletter Now!
