Roger S. Carter

Roger S. Carter: “The children are watching.”

Roger Sylvester Carter (1915–1984)—grandson of Rev. Willis J. Carter of the First Baptist Church of Guilford—grew up in Guilford and later settled in Ellicott City, where the Roger Carter Community Center near Fels Lane now honors his legacy. After the Guilford elementary school on his family’s property, he pursued high school at Lakeland High School in College Park, a 1923 Julius Rosenwald school. Because Howard County offered no public high school for Black students in the 1920s, he left home around 6:30 a.m., walked to Laurel, caught a Route 1 bus, and reached class by 9:00—a daily grind that underscored both his ambition and the barriers he faced.

In 1942 Roger married Agnes Crawford, converted to Catholicism, and opened an automotive repair shop in downtown Ellicott City. A priest soon asked whether he could transport Black children from Doughoregan Manor to St. Paul Catholic School; the Carters started with an Army-surplus “carry-all,” then bought their first bus in 1949 and earned a county contract to carry students to the new Harriett Tubman High School—making Roger the county’s first Black school-bus contractor. Agnes was the first driver and ran operations while Roger kept the fleet running and built the business. After desegregation in 1965, Carter Bus Service, Inc. continued school routes, added weekend public-service trips to correctional facilities (Roger often driving), supported youth events at minimal cost, and in the 1980s transported Head Start students.

Civic service ran alongside entrepreneurship: Rotary, the Howard County Chamber, YMCA, Kiwanis, the Planning Board, and economic development committees. Roger and Agnes also invested in public memory—purchasing the Ellicott City Colored School in 1973 and, with Roger Marino, launching R&R Tour Lines, Ltd. for county history tours. After Roger’s death in 1984, Agnes managed a 12-bus fleet; their daughter Sylvia later led the company and became the first woman in the Ellicott City Rotary. In October 2022, the Roger Carter Community Center unveiled a portrait of its namesake.  His family members reminded us of a frequent phrase he would use that guided much of his life: "the children are watching".