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Fifth Avenue Coach Company bus hit by rocks
Objects struck vehicles traveling on 7th Avenue at several different times during the disorder, including a Boston-bound bus and cars driven by whites and at least one black man. Seventh Avenue was the most heavily trafficked roadway north of 59th Street, a major route in and out of the city. While blacks owned and drove cars, automobiles and other vehicles driven by whites made up most of the traffic that passed through Harlem, especially on 7th Avenue.
The attack occurred not long after the disorder moved away from 125th Street, and is the vicinity of a cluster of events, many from around the same time as this attack, that included broken windows, looted stores and individuals hit by rocks. The bus was likely a convenient target for crowds that moved two or three blocks up the avenue.
Those who bombarded the bus may have been targeting the bus company or driver rather than the passengers. Speaking to reporters the day after the disorder, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell of Abyssinian Baptist Church singled out the Fifth Avenue Coach Company for its refusal to employ blacks on buses running through Harlem (NYT, 3/21/35, 1) as an example of "continued exploration of the Negro [that] is at the bottom of all this trouble." Given that reputation, throwing objects at the bus could have been akin to an attack on a white business – liking breaking store windows not assaulting individuals. It is not clear if such a distinction could be made. Certainly, as a city bus, it seems likely that the passengers on board would have been black. It is not clear if that was the case with the Boston-bound bus, attacked two blocks south, which certainly had some white passengers on board, one of whom was injured.