Research Paper

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

During the era of the Civil Rights Movement, a nonviolent protest was very important. The goal behind protesting without violence was to confront injustice, while persuading those who disapproved of equal rights that it was necessary. An excellent example of a nonviolent protest during the Civil Rights Era is the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In the 1950’s public transportation in Montgomery Alabama separated travelers based on their race. Seats for white travelers were reserved in the front of the bus, while seats for African American travelers were reserved towards the back. Based on “Jim Crow Laws”, African Americans were also expected to give up their seats to white riders if the front of the bus was too full.¹ In this paper, I will explain in depth how the Montgomery Bus Boycott began, its significance to the Civil Rights Movement, how it contributed to the adjustment of segregation laws, and how it changed American History.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was planned years before Rosa Parks got arrested. In 1949 a black professor by the name of Jo Ann Robinson sat at the front of a nearly empty bus, and then ran off in tears when the bus driver screamed at her for doing so.² In the early 1950’s a black pastor by the name of Vernon James tried to get blacks to leave a bus when he was forced to give up his seat to a white man, only to have them tell him, “You ought to knowed better.” ³Jo Ann Robinson felt that this was enough and after her traumatic experience she tried to start a protest but she failed. The Women’s Political Council, which was a group of black professionals founded in 1946 lead by Jo Ann Robinson brushed off the incident saying that it was just “a fact of life in Montgomery.”⁴

After the Supreme Courts Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, in which the courts declared state law establishing separate but public schools for black and white students unconstitutional, Jo Ann wrote a letter to the mayor of Montgomery saying that there has been talk from twenty-five or more local organizations of planning a city wide bus boycott.⁵ E.D Nixon, who was the president of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which was a civil rights organization formed in 1909. Its mission was “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.⁶ He had been waiting for the right person to be arrested, one that would anger the black community so they would agree to rebel civilly against the segregation laws, even if it meant being arrested. In 1955, Nixon thought he had found the right person when a fifteen year old girl by the name of Claudette Colvin was arrested for not giving up her seat, but she ended up being pregnant.⁷ Seven months later, an eighteen year old by the name of Mary Louise Smith was also arrested for refusing to yield her seat to a white passenger. Neither of these arrest mobilized Montgomery’s black community. When E.D. Nixon heard that Rosa Parks had been arrested, he wanted to know why. When he contacted the police, he was told that it was none of his damn business. ⁸ After being told that, he hired a lawyer by the name of Clifford Dur to find out. He was told that it was for the same reason as Claudette Colvin not giving up her seat, except this was a hard working elderly woman with a marital status. Nixon felt that he could use her arrest be a test case to allow Montgomery’s black citizens to challenge segregation on the city’s public buses.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was initiated due to an incident that happened on December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat.⁹ Ms. Parks was a very educated woman that attended the laboratory school at Alabama State College because there was no high school for African Americans at the time. She worked as a seamstress in Montgomery because she could not find a job to suit her skills.¹⁰ Ms. Parks was also a long time local NAACP worker who had taken a special interest in Claudette Colvin’s case. Ms. Parks entered the bus alone with three other blacks and took a seat in the fifth row, which was the first row that African Americans could occupy. As the bus began to fill up, Parks was told by the bus driver, James Blake, alone with three other African Americans to give their seat up to a white man, because blacks were not allowed to occupy the same row as a white man. Instead of doing what she was told, Parks rebelled and refused to yield her seat. This led to Parks being arrested and fined for violating Alabama’s “Jim Crow Laws” on bus segregation.¹¹ Parks’ arrest is known throughout history as the incident that triggered the boycott. Parks’ Co-Worker E.D. Nixon was very influential throughout the African American community. Nixon was able to bail Parks out of jail. Days later, Nixon along with several other civil rights activists & leaders of the African American community felt the need to take action against the segregated bus system. The group collectively decided to boycott the bus system as a way to get the attention of lawmakers and to make it known that segregation would no longer be tolerated. The Montgomery Improvement Association was formed on December 5, 1955 to organize the boycott, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. being the president.¹²

The night Rosa Parks was released from jail, the MIA alone with Jo Ann Robinson and her students put out plans for a one day boycott. She handed out flyers urging black to stay off the city bus on that Monday, which was the day Ms. Parks case was due. Martin Luther King Jr., minister at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, also told his congregation that if they had sixty percent cooperation then the boycott would be successful.

Jo Ann Robinson wanted blacks to boycott because they used the bus more than anyone else but were treated unfair.¹³ After long days of work blacks would sometimes have to stand over empty bus seats because it was the white’s only section. Whites were allowed to occupy the first few rows and seat that were in the black’s only section even if they were filled with someone sitting there. Blacks did not go to towns to shop, children missed school, and the ones that had to work took a taxi. Black taxi drivers charged a fare equal cost to the bus which was ten cents per ride. People also used their private vehicles to carpool, some rode bicycles, mules, horse-drawn buggies, and some even walked. This opened the eyes of the bus authorities, because there were very few passengers on the buses each day, which means they were not making as much money as they usually would.¹⁴

Although some people agreed to have just a one day boycott, E.D. Nixon spoke to the people saying, “What’s the matter with you? Here you have been living off the sweat of these washer women all these years and you have never done anything for them. Now you have a chance to pay them back, and you’re too damn scared to stand on your feet and be counted! The time has come when you men is going to have to learn to be grown me or scared boys.”¹⁵ After Nixon spoke the people voted to continue with the boycott. No one expected it to last long, because there had been bus boycotts for blacks before that were not very successful. The most recent one had been in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1953, which lasted eight days. The buses were more desegregated but still had some seats reserved for whites and blacks as well. On the fourth day of the Montgomery bus boycott, King and other MIA officials met with city commissioners, lawyers and officials from the bus company to come up with a desegregation plan similar to the one implemented in Baton Rouge. Bus companies refused to consider their plan to end the boycott. When the city officials announced that any black cab driver charging less than forty five cents to ride would be prosecuted. ¹⁶This left many blacks without transportation to work. In response to the city officials, the MIA worked out a private taxi plan, which was a system where blacks that owned cars picked up and dropped off other blacks at designated points.

Whites tried to end the boycott in every way possible. On January 21, 1956, the City Commission met with three non MIA black ministers to propose a compromise. The ministers accepted the compromise and the commissioners leaked false reports that the boycott was over. The MIA was unaware of this compromise until a black reporter in the North called on Saturday to see if they had settled for the compromise.¹⁷ The commission put the reports in the Sunday paper hoping that blacks would believe this. The MIA officials went out to spread the word that it was all a lie, the boycott was still on. The ministers apologized to Dr. King say that it was all a misunderstanding. When whites saw that their plan had failed, they turned to violence and bombed Dr. Kings home on January 30, and Nixons home on February 1. Next the whites turned to the laws and blacks were indicted under an old law prohibiting boycotts. Whites also tried to break down the “private taxi” system that many blacks relied on as their only means of transportation. Some churches had purchased station wagons to be used in the private taxi service. Liability insurance was canceled four times in four months before King found insurance through a black agent in Atlanta, underwritten by Lloyd’s of London. The police also arrested drivers for minor traffic offenses. When King dropped by a pickup point to help transport blacks waiting there, he was arrested for driving thirty miles per hour in a twenty-five mile per hour zone.

Members of Montgomery’s business community were becoming frustrated with the boycott, because it was costing them thousands of dollars because blacks were less likely to shop in downtown stores. Although they were as opposed to integration as the next white Montgomery resident, they realized that the boycott was bad for business and therefore wanted the boycott to end. They formed a group called the Men of Montgomery and tried negotiating directly with the boycotters. The blacks refused their agreements.¹⁸

Blacks put in their mind that they would no longer settle for anything less than full integration. They went to federal courts and used the Brown v Board of education decision which stated the “separate but equal” doctrine had no place in public education. On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal court’s ruling, declaring segregation on buses unconstitutional. ¹⁹The Montgomery Bus Boycott was officially over and blacks returned to the buses on December 21, 1956. On January 10, 1957 ministers from the MIA joined other minister around the south in Atlanta, Georgia and founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. They elected Dr. King as president and continued the fight for civil rights.

Annotated Bibliography

Fisher Phibbs, Cheryl. The Montgomery Bus Boycott :A History & Reference Guide. Santa Barbara , California: Greenwood Publishing Gropu, 2009.

Glennon, Robert . “The Role of Law in the Civil Rights Movement: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1957.” Law and History Review 9, no. No 1 spring (1991): 59-112. http://www.jstor.org/stable/743660 (accessed March 8, 2013).

Kennedy, Randall. “Martin Luther King’s Constitution: A Legal History of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.” The Yale Law Journal 98, no. 6 (1989): 999-1067. http://www.jstor.org/stable/796572 (accessed March 7, 2013).

Pierce, Alan. The Montgomery bus boycott. Edina, Minn.: Abdo Pub., 2005.

“Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott [ushistory.org].” ushistory.org. http://www.ushistory.org/us/54b.asp (accessed March 8, 2013).

“The Montgomery Bus Boycott.” Civil Rights Movement 1955-1965. http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/montbus.html (accessed March 8, 2013).

1 Alan Pierce. The Montgomery bus boycott. Edina, Minn.: Abdo Pub., 2005.

2“The Montgomery Bus Boycott.” Civil Rights Movement 1955-1965. http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/montbus.html (accessed March 8, 2013).

3“The Montgomery Bus Boycott.” Civil Rights Movement 1955-1965. http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/montbus.html (accessed March 8, 2013).

4 Alan Pierce. The Montgomery bus boycott. Edina, Minn.: Abdo Pub., 2005.

5Robert Glennon. “The Role of Law in the Civil Rights Movement: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1957.” Law and History Review 9, no. No 1 spring (1991): 59-112. http://www.jstor.org/stable/743660 (accessed March 8, 2013).

6 Randall Kennedy. “Martin Luther King’s Constitution: A Legal History of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.” The Yale Law Journal 98, no. 6 (1989): 999-1067. http://www.jstor.org/stable/796572 (accessed March 7, 2013).

7Cheryl Fisher Phibbs, The Montgomery Bus Boycott :A History & Reference Guide. Santa Barbara , California: Greenwood Publishing Gropu, 2009.

8 Cheryl Fisher Phibbs. The Montgomery Bus Boycott :A History & Reference Guide. Santa Barbara , California: Greenwood Publishing Gropu, 2009.

9Alan Pierce. The Montgomery bus boycott. Edina, Minn.: Abdo Pub., 2005.

10“Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott [ushistory.org].” ushistory.org. http://www.ushistory.org/us/54b.asp (accessed March 8, 2013).

11Cheryl Fisher Phibbs, . The Montgomery Bus Boycott :A History & Reference Guide. Santa Barbara , California: Greenwood Publishing Gropu, 2009.

12“The Montgomery Bus Boycott.” Civil Rights Movement 1955-1965. http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/montbus.html (accessed March 8, 2013).

13Alan Pierce. The Montgomery bus boycott. Edina, Minn.: Abdo Pub., 2005.

14“Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott [ushistory.org].” ushistory.org. http://www.ushistory.org/us/54b.asp (accessed March 8, 2013).

15“The Montgomery Bus Boycott.” Civil Rights Movement 1955-1965. http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/montbus.html (accessed March 8, 2013).

16“Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott [ushistory.org].” ushistory.org. http://www.ushistory.org/us/54b.asp (accessed March 8, 2013).

17 Robert Glennon. “The Role of Law in the Civil Rights Movement: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1957.” Law and History Review 9, no. No 1 spring (1991): 59-112. http://www.jstor.org/stable/743660 (accessed March 8, 2013).

18“Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott [ushistory.org].” ushistory.org. http://www.ushistory.org/us/54b.asp (accessed March 8, 2013).

19 Robert Glennon. “The Role of Law in the Civil Rights Movement: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1957.” Law and History Review 9, no. No 1 spring (1991): 59-112. http://www.jstor.org/stable/743660 (accessed March 8, 2013).