The Montgomery Bus Boycott

1
The Montgomery Bus Boycott

• English 12
• K. Curran

2
December, 1955

• The story of the boycott is often simplified
• Rosa Parks, a weary seamstress, refused to move
  to the back of the bus and give her seat to a
  white man.
• There is MORE to this story

3
Jo Ann Robinson

• Womens Political Council
• Professor
• Had been removed from the front of an empty bus
  in 1949
• Began drumming up support for a boycott of busses
  in Montgomery

4
Claudette Colvin

• The NAACP looked for the perfect person to test
  the segregation laws in Alabama
• When 15 year old Claudette Colvin was arrested
  for not giving up her seat, they thought they had
  found the perfect candidate

5
Above Reproach

• When it was discovered that Claudette Colvin was
  pregnant (and unwed), she was dropped as the test
  subject
• ED Nixon of the NAACP explained I had to be sure
  I had somebody I could win with. Someone above
  reproach.
• Enter Rosa Parks

6
A Simple Weary Seamstress?

• Rosa Parks was educated, active in the NAACP, and
  a well-respected Civil Rights worker in
  Montgomery, Alabama
• She was aware of Claudette Colvins case, and
  knew that the black community in Montgomery was
  looking for a case to test segregation laws.

7
Bus Rules

• On busses in Montgomery, Alabama, there was a
  section for white riders at the front, and a
  separate section for black riders at the back.
• Rosa Parks sat in the first of the black rows
  of seats
• When the white seats filled, blacks had to give
  up their own row and move farther back, since
  blacks and whites could not occupy the same row,
  legally. Parks was arrested for refusing to give
  up her designated black seat to a standing
  white patron.

8
BOYCOTT!

• Jo Ann Robinson, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
  and ED Nixon of the NAACP formed the Montgomery
  Improvement Association (MIA) and began to spread
  the word of a bus boycott to protest the arrest
  of Ms. Parks.

9
December, 1955

• Dr. King and the MIA met with the bus company to
  try to orchestrate a desegregation plan, but were
  refused
• The city of Montgomery attempted to end the
  boycott by making it illegal for taxis to charge
  less than 45 cents. This is because black-owned
  cab services had been charging the bus rate of 10
  cents to boycotting citizens.

10
Private Taxis

• The MIA arranged for community members who owned
  cars to drive boycotting citizens to work
• This system worked with military precision, and
  required a Transportation Committee to oversee
  it.

11
Dirty Tactics

• The town of Montgomery tried to stop the boycott
  in a number of ways, including direct
  manipulation of the media. Stories were printed
  in the local papers suggesting that the boycott
  was over, and civil rights activists had to race
  to every church, pub, and gathering place in the
  community to ensure that citizens did not ride
  the bus.

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Dirty Tactics

• The town of Montgomery also invoked an ancient
  law prohibiting boycotts. Under this law,
  Reverend King was arrested, fined 1000, and
  threatened with incarceration.
• None of the towns attempts to end the boycott
  worked
• The (white) business community in Montgomery was
  becoming concerned

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The following is a series of cartoons by Laura
Gray that appeared in The Militant, a civil
rights publication in Alabama, in 1956
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Court Battle

• Brown vs. the Board of Education decision
  supported desegregation
• Faced with the concern that desegregation would
  lead to violence, the judge stated Is it fair to
  ask one man to surrender his constitutional
  rights in order to prevent another man from
  committing a crime?

17
A Legal Victory

• On November 13th, 1956, the US Supreme Court
  determined that segregation on busses was
  unconstitutional.
• After a full year of walking to work, Mother
  Pollard, a community member, was quoted as saying
  my feets is weary, but my soul is rested.

18
Violence

• On December 21st, 1956, Montgomery blacks ended
  the bus boycott
• This action was met with violence, including
  snipers shooting at busses and a series of
  bombings of the homes and offices of civil rights
  workers. Five men were arrested, two confessed,
  and none were convicted of these crimes

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The KKK

• The KKK also tried to intimidate the civil rights
  activists of Montgomery
• Reverend King suggested that their scare tactics
  seemed to have lost their spell. One cold night
  a small negro boy was seen warming his hands at a
  burning cross.

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Legacy

• The violence in Montgomery eventually died down,
  and busses became fully desegregated
• Rosa Parks simple act of civil disobedience
  began a year-long boycott that saw a community
  work together to fight for rights
• This helped to launch the struggle for freedom
  and justice known as the civil rights movement

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And the bus?

• The bus was de-commissioned in the late 1950s,
  and the company attempted to sell it for scrap
• The African American community rallied to have it
  kept as a monument to the Civil Rights Movement
• The Henry Ford Museum in Detroit bid 427,919 at
  an auction in 2001, beating out the city of
  Denver, Colorado and the Smithsonian Institution.

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Web Resources Gratefully Cited

• http//www.montgomeryboycott.com/photos/rParksArre
  st.jpg
• http//www.cnn.com/US/9512/bus_boycott/parks_on_bu
  s.jpg
• www.holtlaborlibrary.org/images/BusBoycottSegregat
  ion
• www.africanaonline.com/Graphic/mlk_montgomery.jpg
• www.bbc.co.uk/.../timeline_bus_s2_carpool.jpg
• minorjive.typepad.com/.../index.html
• www.sites.si.edu/.../381/new/pages/parks_jpg.htm
• www.blackvoices.com/.../montgomery_bus_boycott
• asp.usatoday.com/.../utils/idmap/13249117.story
• www.writespirit.net/inspirational_talks/political/
  martin_luther_king_talks/martin-luther-king2.jpg
• http//www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/remember/parks/imag
  es/e-d-nixon_parks_sub.jpg
• http//www.crmvet.org/crmpics/band/robinsonjoann.j
  pg
• http//www.montgomeryboycott.com/img/biophotos/bio
  _colvin2.jpg