Montgomery Bus Boycott
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The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social
protest A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooper ...
campaign against the policy of
racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Intern ...
on the public transit system of Montgomery,
Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = " Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...
. It was a foundational event in the
civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
in the United States. The campaign lasted from December 5, 1955—the Monday after
Rosa Parks Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "th ...
, an
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
woman, was arrested for her refusal to surrender her seat to a white person—to December 20, 1956, when the federal ruling '' Browder v. Gayle'' took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional.


Background

Before the bus boycott,
Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the S ...
mandated the
racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Intern ...
of the Montgomery Bus Line. As a result of this segregation, African Americans were not hired as drivers, were forced to ride in the back of the bus, and were frequently ordered to surrender their seats to white people even though black passengers made up 75% of the bus system's riders. Many bus drivers treated their black passengers poorly beyond the law: African-Americans were assaulted, Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
decided unanimously, in the case of ''
Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
'', that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The reaction by the white population of the Deep South was "noisy and stubborn". Many white bus drivers joined the White Citizens' Council as a result of the decision. Although it is often framed as the start of the
civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
, the boycott occurred at the end of many black communities' struggles in the South to protect black women, such as
Recy Taylor Recy Taylor (''née'' Corbitt; December 31, 1919 – December 28, 2017) was an African-American woman from Abbeville in Henry County, Alabama. She was born and raised in a sharecropping family in the Jim Crow era Southern United States. Tayl ...
, from racial violence. The boycott also took place within a larger statewide and national movement for civil rights, including court cases such as ''
Morgan v. Virginia ''Morgan v. Virginia'', 328 U.S. 373 (1946), is a major United States Supreme Court case. In this landmark 1946 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7–1 that Virginia's state law enforcing segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional. ...
'', the earlier Baton Rouge bus boycott, and the arrest of Claudette Colvin for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus.


Previous transport and Bus boycotts in the United States

In 1841
Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...
and his friend
James N. Buffum James Needham Buffum (May 16, 1807 – June 12, 1887) was a Massachusetts politician who served as the 12th and 14th Mayor of Lynn, Massachusetts. Early life Buffum was born in North Berwick, Maine on May 16, 1807 to Samuel and Hannah (Varney) ...
entered a train car reserved for white passengers in Lynn, Massachusetts, when the conductor ordered them to leave the car, they refused. Following the action, widespread organizing led congress to approve the
Civil Rights Act of 1875 The Civil Rights Act of 1875, sometimes called the Enforcement Act or the Force Act, was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction era in response to civil rights violations against African Americans. The bill was passed by the ...
which grant equal rights to Black citizens in public accommodations. In 1883 the Supreme Court overturned this victory declaring it unconstitutional.


Rape of Recy Taylor

On September 3, 1944,
Recy Taylor Recy Taylor (''née'' Corbitt; December 31, 1919 – December 28, 2017) was an African-American woman from Abbeville in Henry County, Alabama. She was born and raised in a sharecropping family in the Jim Crow era Southern United States. Tayl ...
, a black woman, was raped by six white men in
Abbeville, Alabama Abbeville is a city in and the county seat of Henry County, in the southeast part of Alabama, United States. It is part of the Dothan, Alabama Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2020 census, the population was 2,358. It is the first city a ...
. After investigating her case,
Rosa Parks Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "th ...
along with
E. D. Nixon Edgar Daniel Nixon (July 12, 1899 – February 25, 1987), known as E. D. Nixon, was an American civil rights leader and union organizer in Alabama who played a crucial role in organizing the landmark Montgomery bus boycott there in 1955. The bo ...
, Rufus A. Lewis, and E. G. Jacksonorganized a defense for Taylor in Montgomery. They mobilized nationwide support from labor unions, African-American organizations, and women's groups to form the Alabama Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor. Although they did not succeed in obtaining justice in court for Taylor, the mobilization of the black community in Alabama set up social and political networks that enabled the success of the Montgomery bus boycott a decade later.


''Morgan v. Virginia'' decision

The
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.& ...
(NAACP) had accepted and litigated other cases, including that of
Irene Morgan Irene Amos Morgan (April 9, 1917 – August 10, 2007), later known as Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, was an African-American woman from Baltimore, Maryland, who was arrested in Middlesex County, Virginia, in 1944 under a state law imposing racial segreg ...
in 1946, which resulted in a victory in the Supreme Court on the grounds that segregated interstate bus lines violated the
Commerce Clause The Commerce Clause describes an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution ( Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and amon ...
. That victory, however, overturned state segregation laws only insofar as they applied to travel in interstate commerce, such as interstate bus travel, and Southern bus companies immediately circumvented the ''Morgan'' ruling by instituting their own Jim Crow regulations. Further incidents continued to take place in Montgomery, including the arrest of Lillie Mae Bradford for disorderly conduct in May 1951 for allegedly refusing to leave the white passengers' section until the bus driver amended an incorrect charge on her transfer ticket.


Baton Rouge bus boycott

On February 25, 1953, the
Baton Rouge Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana's most populous parish—the equivalent of counti ...
,
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...
, city-parish council passed Ordinance 222 after the city saw protesting from African Americans when the council raised the city's bus fares. The ordinance abolished race-based reserved seating requirements and allowed the admission of African Americans in the front sections of city buses if there were no white passengers present, but it still required African Americans to enter from the rear rather than the front of the buses. However, the ordinance was largely unenforced by the city bus drivers. The drivers later went on strike after city authorities refused to arrest Rev.
T. J. Jemison Theodore Judson Jemison (August 1, 1918 – November 15, 2013), better known as T. J. Jemison, was the president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. from 1982 to 1994. It is the largest African-American religious organization. He oversa ...
for sitting in a front row. Four days after the strike began,
Louisiana Attorney General The office of attorney general of Louisiana (french: Procureur général de la Louisiane) has existed since the colonial period. Under Article IV, Section 8 of the Constitution of Louisiana, the attorney general is elected statewide for a four-yea ...
and former
Baton Rouge Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana's most populous parish—the equivalent of counti ...
mayor Fred S. LeBlanc declared the ordinance unconstitutional under Louisiana state law. This led Rev. Jemison to organize what historians believe to be the first bus boycott of the civil rights movement. The boycott ended after eight days when an agreement was reached to only retain the first two front and back rows as racially reserved seating.


Arrest of Claudette Colvin

Black activists had begun to build a case to challenge state bus segregation laws around the arrest of 15-year-old Claudette Colvin, a student at
Booker T. Washington Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American c ...
High School in Montgomery. On March 2, 1955, Colvin was handcuffed, arrested, and forcibly removed from a public bus when she refused to give up her seat to a white man. At the time, Colvin was an active member in the
NAACP Youth Council The NAACP Youth Council is a branch of the NAACP in which youth are actively involved. In past years, council participants organized under the council's name to make major strides in the Civil Rights Movement. Started in 1935 by Juanita E. Jackson, ...
, where Rosa Parks was an advisor. Colvin's legal case formed the core of ''Browder v. Gayle'', which ended the Montgomery bus boycott when the Supreme Court ruled on it in December 1956.


Murder of Emmett Till; trial and acquittal of the accused

In August 1955, four months before Parks's refusal to give up a seat on the bus that led to the Montgomery bus boycott, a 14-year-old African American from Chicago named
Emmett Till Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941August 28, 1955) was a 14-year-old African Americans, African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and Lynching in the United States, lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a whi ...
was murdered by two white men, John W. Milam and Roy Bryant. The picture of his brutally beaten body in the open-casket funeral that his mother requested was widely publicized, specifically by the weekly newspaper ''Jet'', which circulated in much of the black community in the North. His accused killers were acquitted the following month. There was massive outrage at this verdict both domestically and internationally. In an interview on January 24, 1956, published in ''Look'' magazine, the two men admitted to murdering Till.


''Keys v. Carolina Coach Co.'' decision

In November 1955, three weeks before Parks's defiance of Jim Crow laws in Montgomery, the
Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to elimina ...
(ICC), in response to a complaint filed by
Women's Army Corps The Women's Army Corps (WAC) was the women's branch of the United States Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) on 15 May 1942 and converted to an active duty status in the Army of the United States ...
Private Sarah Keys, closed the legal loophole left by the ''Morgan'' ruling in a landmark case known as ''
Keys v. Carolina Coach Co. ''Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company'', 64 MCC 769 (1955) is a landmark civil rights case in the United States in which the Interstate Commerce Commission, in response to a bus segregation complaint filed in 1953 by a Women's Army Corps (WAC) p ...
''. The ICC prohibited individual carriers from imposing their own segregation rules on interstate travelers, declaring that to do so was a violation of the anti-discrimination provision of the Interstate Commerce Act. However, neither the Supreme Court's ''Morgan'' ruling nor the ICC's ''Keys'' ruling addressed the matter of Jim Crow travel within the individual states.


History

Under the system of segregation used on Montgomery buses, the ten front seats were reserved for white people at all times. The ten back seats were supposed to be reserved for black people at all times. The middle section of the bus consisted of sixteen unreserved seats for white and black people on a segregated basis. White people filled the middle seats from the front to back, and black people filled seats from the back to front until the bus was full. If other black people boarded the bus, they were required to stand. If another white person boarded the bus, then everyone in the black row nearest the front had to get up and stand so that a new row for white people could be created; it was illegal for white and black people to sit next to each other. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white person, she was sitting in the first row of the middle section. Often when boarding the buses, black people were required to pay at the front, get off, and reenter the bus through a separate door at the back. Occasionally, bus drivers would drive away before black passengers were able to reboard.
National City Lines National City Lines, Inc. (NCL) was a public transportation company. The company grew out of the Fitzgerald brothers' bus operations, founded in Minnesota, United States in 1920 as a modest local transport company operating two buses. Part of the ...
owned the Montgomery Bus Line at the time of the Montgomery bus boycott. Under the leadership of
Walter Reuther Walter Philip Reuther (; September 1, 1907 – May 9, 1970) was an American leader of organized labor and civil rights activist who built the United Automobile Workers (UAW) into one of the most progressive labor unions in American history. He ...
, the
United Auto Workers The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers (UAW), is an American Labor unions in the United States, labor union that represents workers in the Un ...
donated almost $5,000 () to the boycott's organizing committee.


Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "th ...
(February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was a
seamstress A dressmaker, also known as a seamstress, is a person who makes custom clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and evening gowns. Dressmakers were historically known as mantua-makers, and are also known as a modiste or fabrician. Not ...
by profession; she was also the secretary for the Montgomery chapter of the
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&n ...
. Twelve years before her history-making arrest, Parks was stopped from boarding a city bus by driver James F. Blake, who ordered her to board at the rear door and then drove off without her. Parks vowed never again to ride a bus driven by Blake. As a member of the NAACP, Parks was an investigator assigned to cases of sexual assault. In 1945, she was sent to
Abbeville, Alabama Abbeville is a city in and the county seat of Henry County, in the southeast part of Alabama, United States. It is part of the Dothan, Alabama Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2020 census, the population was 2,358. It is the first city a ...
, to investigate the gang rape of
Recy Taylor Recy Taylor (''née'' Corbitt; December 31, 1919 – December 28, 2017) was an African-American woman from Abbeville in Henry County, Alabama. She was born and raised in a sharecropping family in the Jim Crow era Southern United States. Tayl ...
. The protest that arose around the Taylor case was the first instance of a nationwide civil rights protest, and it laid the groundwork for the Montgomery bus boycott. In 1955, Parks completed a course in "Race Relations" at the
Highlander Folk School The Highlander Research and Education Center, formerly known as the Highlander Folk School, is a social justice leadership training school and cultural center in New Market, Tennessee. Founded in 1932 by activist Myles Horton, educator Don West ( ...
in Tennessee, where
nonviolent Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...
civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". H ...
had been discussed as a tactic. On December 1, 1955, Parks was sitting in the foremost row in which black people could sit (in the middle section). When a white man boarded the bus, the bus driver told everyone in her row to move back. At that moment, Parks realized that she was again on a bus driven by Blake. While all of the other black people in her row complied, Parks refused, and she was arrested for failing to obey the driver's seat assignments, as city ordinances did not explicitly mandate segregation but did give the bus driver authority to assign seats. Found guilty on December 5, Parks was fined $10 plus a court cost of $4'''' (combined total ), and she appealed. This movement also sparked riots leading up to the 1956 Sugar Bowl.


E. D. Nixon

Some action against segregation had been in the works for some time before Parks' arrest, under the leadership of
E. D. Nixon Edgar Daniel Nixon (July 12, 1899 – February 25, 1987), known as E. D. Nixon, was an American civil rights leader and union organizer in Alabama who played a crucial role in organizing the landmark Montgomery bus boycott there in 1955. The bo ...
, president of the local
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&n ...
chapter and a member of the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Founded in 1925, The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) was the first labor organization led by African Americans to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The BSCP gathered a membership of 18,000 passenger railway ...
. Nixon intended that her arrest be a
test case In software engineering, a test case is a specification of the inputs, execution conditions, testing procedure, and expected results that define a single test to be executed to achieve a particular software testing objective, such as to exercise ...
to allow Montgomery's black citizens to challenge segregation on the city's public buses. With this goal, community leaders had been waiting for the right person to be arrested, a person who would anger the black community into action, who would agree to test the segregation laws in court, and who, most importantly, was "above reproach". When Colvin was arrested in March 1955, Nixon thought he had found the perfect person, but the teenager turned out to be pregnant. Nixon later explained, "I had to be sure that I had somebody I could win with." Parks was a good candidate because of her employment and marital status, along with her good standing in the community. Between Parks' arrest and trial, Nixon organized a meeting of local ministers at Martin Luther King Jr.'s church. Though Nixon could not attend the meeting because of his work schedule, he arranged that no election of a leader for the proposed boycott would take place until his return. When he returned, he caucused with Ralph Abernathy and Rev. E.N. French to name the association to lead the boycott to the city (they selected the "
Montgomery Improvement Association The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was formed on December 5, 1955 by black ministers and community leaders in Montgomery, Alabama. Under the leadership of Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Edgar Nixon, the MIA was instrumental ...
", "MIA"), and they selected King (Nixon's choice) to lead the boycott. Nixon wanted King to lead the boycott because the young minister was new to Montgomery and the city fathers had not had time to intimidate him. At a subsequent, larger meeting of ministers, Nixon's agenda was threatened by the clergymen's reluctance to support the campaign. Nixon was indignant, pointing out that their poor congregations worked to put money into the collection plates so these ministers could live well, and when those congregations needed the clergy to stand up for them, those comfortable ministers refused to do so. Nixon threatened to reveal the ministers' cowardice to the black community, and King spoke up, denying he was afraid to support the boycott. King agreed to lead the MIA, and Nixon was elected its treasurer.


Boycott

On the night of Parks' arrest, the Women's Political Council, led by Jo Ann Robinson, printed and circulated a flyer throughout Montgomery's black community that read as follows:
Another woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down. It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing. This has to be stopped. Negroes have rights too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negro, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother. This woman's case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don't ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday. You can afford to stay out of school for one day if you have no other way to go except by bus. You can also afford to stay out of town for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off all buses Monday.
The next morning there was a meeting led by the new Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) head, King, where a group of 16 to 18 people gathered at the Mt. Zion Church to discuss boycott strategies. At that time
Rosa Parks Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "th ...
was introduced but not asked to speak, despite a standing ovation and calls from the crowd for her to speak; she asked someone if she should say something, but they replied, "Why, you've said enough." A citywide boycott of public transit was proposed, with three demands: 1) courteous treatment by bus operators, 2) passengers seated on a first-come, first-served basis, with black people seated in the back half and white people seated in the front half, and 3) black people would be employed as bus operators on routes predominately taken by black people. This demand was a compromise for the leaders of the boycott, who believed that the city of Montgomery would be more likely to accept it rather than a demand for full integration of the buses. In this respect, the MIA leaders followed the pattern of 1950s boycott campaigns in the
Deep South The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion in the Southern United States. The term was first used to describe the states most dependent on plantations and slavery prior to the American Civil War. Following the wa ...
, including the successful boycott a few years earlier of service stations in
Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
for refusing to provide restrooms for Black people. The organizer of that campaign, T. R. M. Howard of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, had spoken on the lynching of
Emmett Till Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941August 28, 1955) was a 14-year-old African Americans, African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and Lynching in the United States, lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a whi ...
as King's guest at the
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church Dexter Avenue Baptist Church is a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama, United States, affiliated with the Progressive National Baptist Convention. The church was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1974 because of its importance ...
only four days before Parks's arrest. Parks was in the audience and later said that Emmett Till was on her mind when she refused to give up her seat. The MIA's demand for a fixed dividing line was to be supplemented by a requirement that all bus passengers receive courteous treatment by bus operators, be seated on a first-come, first-served basis, and that Black people be employed as bus drivers. The proposal was passed, and the boycott was to commence the following Monday. To publicize the impending boycott it was advertised at black churches throughout Montgomery the following Sunday. On Saturday, December 3, it was evident that the black community would support the boycott, and very few Black people rode the buses that day. On December 5, a mass meeting was held at the Holt Street Baptist Church to determine if the protest would continue. Given twenty minutes notice, King gave a speech asking for a bus boycott and attendees enthusiastically agreed. Starting December 7, J Edgar Hoover's FBI noted the "agitation among negroes" and tried to find "derogatory information" about King. The boycott proved extremely effective, with enough riders lost to the city transit system to cause serious economic distress. Martin Luther King later wrote, " miracle had taken place." Instead of riding buses, boycotters organized a system of carpools, with car owners volunteering their vehicles or themselves driving people to various destinations. Some white housewives also drove their black domestic servants to work. When the city pressured local insurance companies to stop insuring cars used in the carpools, the boycott leaders arranged policies at
Lloyd's of London Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body gove ...
. Black
taxi A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choic ...
drivers charged ten cents per ride, a fare equal to the cost to ride the bus, in support of the boycott. When word of this reached city officials on December 8, the order went out to fine any cab driver who charged a rider less than 45 cents. In addition to using private
motor vehicles A motor vehicle, also known as motorized vehicle or automotive vehicle, is a self-propelled land vehicle, commonly wheeled, that does not operate on rails (such as trains or trams) and is used for the transportation of people or cargo. The veh ...
, some people used non-motorized means to get around, such as cycling, walking, or even riding mules or driving horse-drawn buggies. Some people also hitchhiked. During rush hours, sidewalks were often crowded. As the buses received few, if any, passengers, their officials asked the City Commission to allow stopping service to black communities. Across the nation, black churches raised money to support the boycott and collected new and slightly used shoes to replace the tattered footwear of Montgomery's black citizens, many of whom walked everywhere rather than ride the buses and submit to
Jim Crow law The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the S ...
s. In response, opposing whites swelled the ranks of the White Citizens' Council, the membership of which doubled during the course of the boycott. The councils sometimes resorted to violence: King's and Abernathy's houses were
firebombed Firebombing is a bombing technique designed to damage a target, generally an urban area, through the use of fire, caused by incendiary devices, rather than from the blast effect of large bombs. In popular usage, any act in which an incendiary d ...
, as were four black Baptist churches. Boycotters were often physically attacked. After the attack at King's house, he gave a speech to the 300 angry African Americans who had gathered outside. He said: King and 88 other boycott leaders and carpool drivers were indicted for conspiring to interfere with a business under a 1921 ordinance. Rather than wait to be arrested, they turned themselves in as an act of defiance. King was ordered to pay a $500 fine or serve 386 days in jail. He ended up spending two weeks in jail. The move backfired by bringing national attention to the protest. King commented on the arrest by saying: "I was proud of my crime. It was the crime of joining my people in a nonviolent protest against injustice." Also important during the bus boycott were grassroots activist groups that helped to catalyze both fund-raising and morale. Groups such as the Club from Nowhere helped to sustain the boycott by finding new ways of raising money and offering support to boycott participants. Many members of these organizations were women and their contributions to the effort have been described by some as essential to the success of the bus boycott.


Victory

Pressure increased across the country. The related civil suit was heard in federal district court and, on June 5, 1956, the court ruled in '' Browder v. Gayle'' (1956) that Alabama's racial segregation laws for buses were unconstitutional. As the state appealed the decision, the boycott continued. The case moved on to the
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
. On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court upheld the district court's ruling. The bus boycott officially ended on December 20, 1956, after 382 days. The Montgomery bus boycott resounded far beyond the desegregation of public buses. It stimulated activism and participation from the South in the national Civil Rights Movement and gave King national attention as a rising leader.


Aftermath

White backlash against the court victory was quick, brutal, and, in the short term, effective. Two days after the inauguration of desegregated seating, someone fired a shotgun through the front door of Martin Luther King's home. A day later, on Christmas Eve, white men attacked a black teenager as she exited a bus. Four days after that, two buses were fired upon by snipers. In one sniper incident, a pregnant woman was shot in both legs. On January 10, 1957, bombs destroyed five black churches and the home of Reverend Robert S. Graetz, one of the few white Montgomerians who had publicly sided with the MIA. The City suspended bus service for several weeks on account of the violence. According to legal historian Randall Kennedy, "When the violence subsided and service was restored, many black Montgomerians enjoyed their newly recognized right only abstractly ... In practically every other setting, Montgomery remained overwhelmingly segregated ..." On January 23, a group of
Klansmen The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and C ...
(who would later be charged for the bombings)
lynched Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
a black man,
Willie Edwards Willie Edwards Jr. (November 13, 1932 – January 23, 1957) was a 24-year-old African American, husband and father, who was murdered by members of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. He is buried at New Pleasant Valley Cemetery in Letohatchee, Alabama. ...
, on the pretext that he was dating a white woman. The city's elite moved to strengthen segregation in other areas, and in March 1957 passed an ordinance making it "unlawful for white and colored persons to play together, or, in company with each other ... in any game of cards, dice, dominoes, checkers, pool, billiards, softball, basketball, baseball, football, golf, track, and at swimming pools, beaches, lakes or ponds or any other game or games or athletic contests, either indoors or outdoors." Later in the year, Montgomery police charged seven
Klansmen The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and C ...
with the bombings, but all of the defendants were acquitted. About the same time, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled against Martin Luther King's appeal of his "illegal boycott" conviction. Rosa Parks left Montgomery due to death threats and employment blacklisting. According to Charles Silberman, "by 1963, most Negroes in Montgomery had returned to the old custom of riding in the back of the bus." The National Memorial for Peace and Justice contains, among other things, a sculpture "dedicated to the women who sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott", by
Dana King Dana King (born March 7, 1960) is an American broadcast journalist and sculptor. She served as an anchor for the CBS owned-and-operated station KPIX-TV in San Francisco. In 2012, King left KPIX to pursue her passion in sculpting and art. Her outd ...
, to help illustrate the civil rights period. The memorial opened in downtown
Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County, Alabama, Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the Gulf Coastal Plain, coas ...
on April 26, 2018.


Participants


People

* Ralph Abernathy *
Hugo Black Hugo Lafayette Black (February 27, 1886 – September 25, 1971) was an American lawyer, politician, and jurist who served as a U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1927 to 1937 and as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1937 to 1971. ...
* James F. Blake *
Aurelia Browder Aurelia Shines Browder Coleman (January 29, 1919 – February 4, 1971) was an African-American civil rights activist in Montgomery, Alabama. In April 1955, almost eight months before the arrest of Rosa Parks and a month after the arrest of Claude ...
*
Mary Fair Burks Mary Fair Burks (July 31, 1914 – July 21, 1991) was an American educator, scholar, and activist during the Civil Rights Movement from Montgomery, Alabama. Burks founded the Women’s Political Council in 1946, which helped initiate the Montgomer ...
*
Johnnie Carr Johnnie Rebecca Daniels Carr (January 26, 1911 – February 22, 2008) was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from 1955 until her death. Personal life Carr was born on January 26, 1911, to parents John and Annie Richmond D ...
* Claudette Colvin *
Clifford Durr Clifford Judkins Durr (March 2, 1899 – May 12, 1975) was an Alabama lawyer who played an important role in defending activists and others accused of disloyalty during the New Deal and McCarthy eras. He also was the lawyer who represented ...
* Mildred Fahrni *
Georgia Gilmore Georgia Teresa Gilmore (February 5, 1920 – March 7, 1990) was an African-American woman from Montgomery, Alabama, who participated in the Montgomery bus boycott through her fund-raising organization, the Club from Nowhere, which sold food ...
*
Robert Graetz Robert Sylvester Graetz Jr. (May 16, 1928 – September 20, 2020) was a Lutheran clergyman who, as the white pastor of a black congregation in Montgomery, Alabama, openly supported the Montgomery bus boycott, a landmark event of the civil rights m ...
* Fred Gray * Grover C. Hall Jr. *
Coretta Scott King Coretta Scott King ( Scott; April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006) was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader who was married to Martin Luther King Jr. from 1953 until his death. As an advocate for African-American equality, she ...
*
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
* Theodora Lacey * Edgar Nixon *
Rosa Parks Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "th ...
*
Mother Pollard "Mother" Pollard (c. 1882–1885 – before 1963) was an American church elder who participated in the 1955–1956 Montgomery bus boycott. She has been called a civil rights hero for her tenacity in soothing the spirit of her pastor, Martin Luther ...
* Jo Ann Robinson *
Bayard Rustin Bayard Rustin (; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement, ...
* Nate Singleton *
Glenn Smiley Glenn Smiley (April 19, 1910 – September 14, 1993) was a white civil rights consultant and leader. He closely studied the doctrine of Mahatma Gandhi and became convinced that racism and segregation were most likely to be overcome without the us ...
* Mary Louise Smith


Organizations

* Committee for Nonviolent Integration *
Fellowship of Reconciliation The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR or FOR) is the name used by a number of religious nonviolent organizations, particularly in English-speaking countries. They are linked by affiliation to the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR). ...
*
Georgia Gilmore Georgia Teresa Gilmore (February 5, 1920 – March 7, 1990) was an African-American woman from Montgomery, Alabama, who participated in the Montgomery bus boycott through her fund-raising organization, the Club from Nowhere, which sold food ...
*
Men of Montgomery A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromos ...
*
Montgomery Improvement Association The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was formed on December 5, 1955 by black ministers and community leaders in Montgomery, Alabama. Under the leadership of Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Edgar Nixon, the MIA was instrumental ...
*
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.& ...
* Women's Political Council


See also

* 1957 Alexandra Bus Boycott * ''
Boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict so ...
'' (2001 film) *
Bristol Bus Boycott, 1963 The Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963 arose from the refusal of the Bristol Omnibus Company to employ Black or Asian bus crews in the city of Bristol, England. In line with many other British cities at the time, there was widespread racial discrimin ...
*
The Legacy Museum The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration is a museum in Montgomery, Alabama, that displays the history of slavery and racism in America. This includes the enslavement of African-Americans, racial lynchings, segregation, and rac ...
* ''
The Long Walk Home ''The Long Walk Home'' is a 1990 American historical drama film starring Sissy Spacek and Whoopi Goldberg, and directed by Richard Pearce. Set in Alabama, it is based on a screenplay about the Montgomery bus boycott (1955–1956) by John Cork ...
'' (1990 film) * ''
Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story ''Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story'' is a 16-page comic book about Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and the Montgomery bus boycott published in 1957 by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR USA). It advocates the principles of nonviol ...
'' * Rosa Parks Act * Rosa Parks Museum


References


Further reading

* Berg, Allison, "Trauma and Testimony in Black Women's Civil Rights Memoirs: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It, Warriors Don't Cry, and From the Mississippi
Contributions Contribution or Contribute may refer to: * ''Contribution'' (album), by Mica Paris (1990) ** "Contribution" (song), title song from the album * Contribution (law), an agreement between defendants in a suit to apportion liability *Contributions, ...
Delta", ''Journal of Women's History'', 21 (Fall 2009), 84–107. * Branch, Taylor. ''Parting The Waters: America In The King Years, 1954-63'' (1988; New York: Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, 1989). * Carson, Clayborne, et al., editors, ''Eyes on The Prize Civil Rights Reader: documents, speeches, and first hand accounts from the black freedom struggle'' (New York:Penguin Books, 1991). * Freedman, Russell, "Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott" * Garrow, David J. ''Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.'' (1986) * Garrow, David J., editor, ''The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson'' (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1987). * King, Martin Luther, Jr., ''Stride Toward Freedom.'' * Morris, Aldon D., ''The Origins Of The Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing For Change'' (New York: The Free Press, 1984). * * Raines, Howell, ''My Soul Is Rested: The Story Of The Civil Rights Movement In The Deep South.'' * Robnett, Belinda. How Long? How Long?: African American Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights. Oxford University Press. (1997) * Thornton III, J. Mills. "Challenge and Response in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–1956." ''Alabama Review'' 67.1 (2014): 40–112. * Thornton III, J. Mills. ''Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma'' (2002
excerpt
* Walsh, Frank, ''Landmark Events in American History: The Montgomery Bus Boycott.'' * Williams, Juan, ''Eyes on The Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965'' (New York: Penguin Books, 1988).


External links



– Jack Rabin Collection on Alabama Civil Rights and Southern Activists, at Penn State University, includes oral history interviews and materials concerning Montgomery Bus Boycott
Montgomery Bus Boycott article, Encyclopedia of Alabama



Encyclopedia entry on the Montgomery Bus Boycott
– Includes cross-referenced text, historical documents and streaming audio, presented by the King Research Institute at Stanford University

– African-American History

– Civil Rights Movement Archive
Learning From Rosa Parks, ''The Indypendent''

Montgomery Bus Boycott – Presented by the ''Montgomery Advertiser''


Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, Alabama Department of Archives & History

– 1956

Online collection of original boycott documents and articles by participants – Civil Rights Movement Archive.
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Civil Rights Digital Library.
The Boycott
''The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.'' {{Authority control 1955 protests 1956 protests Civil rights protests in the United States Boycotts of organizations Conflicts in 1955 Civil rights movement 1955 in the United States Bus Boycott History of racism in Alabama Martin Luther King Jr. African-American history of Alabama 1955 in Alabama 1956 in Alabama Transportation in Montgomery, Alabama Protests in Alabama 1955 in transport 1956 in transport Bus transportation in Alabama Boycotts December 1955 events in the United States