Irine V. McCord has several nicknames on the No. 50 Cherokee Bend bus. She's Running Irine because at 74 she still tries to sprint to catch the bus. Or she’s Talking Irine because she’s a chatterbox. And the women on the bus often joke, “Irine's asleep, wake her up!” when she nods off as the bus rolls through Birmingham.

McCord has been taking the buses in Birmingham since she was a girl. She remembers the segregated buses, how she was forced to stand as white passengers slid into seats and the driver moved the board designating “colored” farther and farther back.

“There might not be a seat back there, but you go back past that board. Just do it. You know, you don't cause no problem. If you had to stand, you wouldn't necessarily like it, but you just do it. Cause you wanna go on, you didn't want to be delayed.”

McCord dropped out of school in the 11th grade, believing she would never be able to graduate, and started working full time. At first, she cleaned houses for people her mother knew. Soon she was working five days a week. Often, when she was waiting at a bus stop, women from the suburbs would drive by and ask if she had a free day to work for them.

McCord says when the buses were segregated, service was wonderful. Buses ran frequently and on time. They didn't get bad, McCord explains, “till the white folks ran.”