Montgomery Bus Boycotts

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Creation of the Montgomery Improvement Association

created by members of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church

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Facts and Figures

Lasted for 381 days

Median income for a black family in Montgomery was $908 in 1949, compared with $1,609 in Birmingham

On Monday, December 5th 1955, one driver only took $6.30 for a 6 hour run

17,000 boycotters each day

only 3% of black Montgomery was middle class and were nevertheless restricted to professions such as clergymen and teachers

Southern urban black churches had a mean congregation size of 442

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Key Dates

Rosa Parks was arrested on the 1st December 1955

Buses were integrated on the 21st December 1956

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The City of Montgomery

capital of Alabama

in the middle of the Black Belt- rich soil and agriculture

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Claudette Colvin

15 years old

arrested on the 2nd March 1955 because she did not sit in the coloured section and refused to give up her seat and leave the bus for a white person

·      in Claudette Colvin’s case, the judge quickly convicted her of violating segregation law and of assault and battery of the arresting officer

  • On appeal, Judge Carter upheld the assault charge but dismissed the segregation charge- undercutting plans to challenge the conviction at a constitutional level
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Rosa Parks

Refused to stand when ordered by the driver to vacate an entire row in the black section so a white man could sit down

E.D Nixon "Mrs Park's case is a case that we can use to break down segregation on the bus"

Parks was not a simple, tired seamstress but a lifelong NAACP activist

  • secretary of the NAACP branch
  • attended the Highlander School in 1954 - branded by segregationists as a ''Communist training school''
  • husband Raymond also had a history of activism
  • encouraged King to participate in the local NAACP
  • got word to E.D Nixon herself after being imprisoned
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E.D Nixon

president of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP

got in touch with Clifford Durr (white lefty) to represent Rosa Parks

Nixon offered his home as a bond to secure Park's release

·       Nixon on MLK ‘’I always knowed that one day this fight would reach a point where better educated and better talkin folks would have to take over if we is to succeed''

''A number of Negroes were arrested for running a red light when there wasn't a red light there''

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Jo Ann Robinson and the WPC

Women's Political Council

wrote a message for blacks in Montgomery on the 2nd December 1955

prepared and distributed 52,500 leaflets - 5th December 1955

"We are, therefore, asking every ***** 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"

on the initial intentions of the boycott ''to admit that black Americans were seeking to integrate would have been too much; there probably would have been much bloodshed and arrests of those who dared to disclose such an idea’’

·       3 initial demands written by Jo Ann Robinson to Mayor Gayle on behalf of the WPC on the 21st May 1954

  • negroes sit from back to front, and white from front to back until all seats are taken
  • not forced to pay at front and enter at back
  • stop at every corner in ***** neighbourhoods
  • black drivers on black bus routes
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The Start of the Boycott

On the end of the first day, 6,000 black people gathered at Holt Street Baptist Church and decided to continue the boycott

three initial demands of the boycott

courteous treatment of ***** passengers, seating on a first come first served basis and ***** busdrivers appointed to ***** neighbourhoods

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Sustaining the Boycott

population took black-operated cabs

black drivers only charged 10 cents - the same as a bus ticket, and the MIA made up the difference - blocked by city officials who introduced a minimum fare

car pooling was important - black professionals such as doctors, lawyers and businessmen picked up walkers

car pool organised amongst over 40 dispatch stations located in black areas, in front of churches for shelter, or on black-owned land to avoid harrassment

car pool supplemented by the purchase of 12 station wagons from different black churches and given full-time, paid drivers

wagons were known as ''rolling churches''

had 24 vehicles at its peak

MIA paid for gas and upkeep including vandalism damage

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Economic results of the Boycott

limited daily black activities and spending due to less movement- boycott unintentionaly expanded to hit inner-city businesses hard

Montgomery's stores took in $2million less during the 1955 Christmas than the previous year#

bus services stopped running between the 22nd December and the end of the holidays - buses had never failed to run for more than 20 years

39 bus drivers laid off and 8 lines discontinued

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White Backlash - official

White Citizen's Council

Police put a 'get tough' policy into effect

64 black drivers had been arrested within 2 weeks for minor traffic offenses

MLK arrested for doing 30mph in a 25mph zone

93 blacks charged with illegally boycotting Montgomery City Lines

King charged with this and fined $500 and court costs

King arrested for allegedly driving 30mph in a 25mph zone

MIA sought to franchise its car pool twice, but was rejected twice, and faced the cancellation of its public liability and property damage insurance

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MLK quotes on the boycott

"If all I have to pay is going to jail a few times and getting about twenty threatening calls a day, I think it is a very small price to pay for what we are fighting for" - speech in the First Baptist Church on the 30th Jan 1956

"Those who had trembled before the law were now proud to be arrested for the cause of freedom"

"let their consciences be their guide''

To MLK, the primary importance of the boycott was its demonstration ‘’to the *****, that many of the stereotypes he had held about himself are not valid’’

"our twelve months of glorious dignity''

MLK ‘’physicians, teachers and lawyers stood beside domestic workers and unskilled labourers’’

‘’men and women who had been separated from each other by false standards of class were now singing and praying together in a common struggle’"

King’s greatest ability was to conceptualise and articulate a morally attractive vision of the protest

"the ***** must work passionately and unrelentingly for full stature as a citizen’’

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Legacy

cooperation among boycotters and mobilisation introduced the world to the power of protests

showed that solidarity and faithful organisation and disciplined action helped them reach an ultimae goal of justice and equity

galvanised the reputation of MLK

did not change much?

  • city ordinance of 19th March 1957 which declared it illegal for blacks and whites to play games together
  • May 1961 - Kennedy had to dispatch federal marshalls to Mont to quell violence against Freedom Riders

At the beginning of 1957, 21 southern cities had ended compulsory segregation in local buses without court action

desegregation only opened doors to blacks with the means to walk through?

but bus boycotts helped the poorest blacks - middle class blacks had their own cars

without the Gayle v Browder verdict, the boycott may have finished without achieving any of its expressed goals

fostered black Montgomery's sense of worth and political duty

MLK helped to overcome local factionalism

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Revisionism

Planned by the Women's Political Council and E.D Nixon, not MLK

King did not initiate the boycott, and was transformed by it himself

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MLK's trial

Obscure Alabama anti-union state law enacted in 1921

Authorities also prodecuted King for violating a law that criminalised conspiring ''without a just cause or legal excuse'' to hinder a business -

trial lasted 19-22 March 1955 and raised MLK's national media profile

presided over by Judge Carter- an ardent segregationist

Prosecution had to prove that MIA 'intimidated' *****es into staying off the buses

10 white 'witnesses' said buses had been struck by stones or gunfire

jury found King guilty- but unexpected benefits

  • black lawyers met their white counterparts in direct competition
  • tenacious and well-argued defence boosted black community
  • faciitated the airing of aspects of segregation which segregationists denied: systematic mistreatment of ***** citizens and widespread opposition amongst *****es to the segregationist regime
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The effect on the Bus companies

suspended service over the Christmas holidays of 1955 and increased fares afterwards

April 1956 - publicly directed drivers to discontinue enforcing segregation - against the wishes of Judge Jones

filed a suit against the MIA called City of Montgomery v MontgomeryImprovement Association

The City argued that MIA lacked a license for operating a transport system

Judge Carter ruled on the 13th Nov 1956 that the MIA could not continue its carpooling

at the same time, Gayle v Browder case in the Supreme Court- ruling that bus segregation in law was against the constitution

armed the boycotters with the legal backing that they desperately sought and needed

revenues fell by 75%

NAACP membership never exceeded 2% of the southern black population

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The End of the Boycott

on the 18th December 1956, MLK and other leaders boarded a bus and occupied seats at the front without incident

some segregationists organised a Rebel Club to provide trasportation available only to whites

fourty carloads of KK rode through ***** neighbourhoods using searchlights on the 13th November - the day of the Browder verdict

Bus sniper incidents in Montgomery - one pregnant woman shot in both legs

10th January 1956 - 5 black churches bombed and the home of Rev Graetz - one of the few white residents who supported the MIA

many went back to old seating habits due to fear or force of habit

Mayor Gayle's verdict ''seriously lowered the dignified relations which did exist between the races''

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Precedents

1853 bus boycott in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

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King's early career

had already established a Social and Political Action Committee

had already been invited to run for NAACP branch president

·      King had a severe crisis of confidence on the evening of the 27th January 1956 after repeatedthreats against his life and family ‘’I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had neve experienced Him before”

·      '’my intimidations are a small price to pay if victory can be won”

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Gayle vs Browder - the decision

Claudette Colvin was one of the plaintiffs

Supreme Court ruled against bus segregation on the 13th November 1956 - MLK ''the darkest hour of our struggle had become the hour of victory''

came on exactly the same day as the local courts illegalised the MIA's car pool

MLK on the decision ''actually the most difficult stage of the crisis had just begun''

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The effect of Brown

Jo Ann Robinson sent a letter to Mayor Gayle threatening to boycott 4 days after the Brown verdict

restored hope to people who had come to feel themselves helpless victims of outrageous and inhuman treatment

local CR leaders would not have been so persistent had they not known that the Supreme Court endorsed the principle for which they were contending

Brown contributed to the litigation of Gayle v Browder

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The injunction against the MIA car pool

MLK - ''how could they function at all with the car pool destroyed?''

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Gayle vs Browder - importance

Thurgood Marshall ''all that walking for nothing. They might as well have waited for the court decision''

  • Browder broke the stalemate between the MIA and the city officials
  • negated the effects of the court injunction against the MIA car pool
  • reinforced Black morale over their cause and provided leverage for the cause
  • put the constitution on the side of the protestors
  • targeted intrastate transportation and finally overturned Plessy

MLK ''the southern ***** goes into federal court with the feeling that he had an honest chance of justice before the law''

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Role of the Churches

word about the boycott spread through preachers

decision over whether to continue the boycott was left to the around 7000 at the mass meeting on the 4th December

donations from church congregations helped to fund the car pool

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White backlash - personal

hate campaign in the streets - walking blacks harrassed with water and urine

black families recieved threat calls

MLK's home was bombed on the 30th Jan 1956- E.D Nixon's was bombed the next day

Rosa Parks was fired from her job without explanation

sniper fires at King's front door

violence on buses - but all blacks adhered to nonviolence and did not fight back

Abernathy's home bombed

12 sticks of dynamite found on King's porch

February 1957 - all-white jury acquits 4 men responsible for bombings, even though 2 of them signed confession statements

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MIA v the City - negotiations and stalemate

City was not willing to concede to any of the MIA's initial modest demands

City attempted to sabotage the boycott by negotiating with 3 conservative black ministers and announcing an 'agreement' - which MLK quickly denied

Mayor Gayle ''when and if the ***** people dersire to end the boycott, my door is open to them. But until they are ready to end it, there will be no more discussions."

Announced on the 23rd Jan 1956 that it would no loner negotiate with the MIA

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the NAACP

MIA's decision to challenge segregation laws rather than just ask for better treatment cemented their relationship with the local NAACP

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Gayle vs Browder - what it didn't do

  • no duty for affirmative action regarding officials
  • only affected 'state action' and therefore not implicit to private enterprises
  • did not directly pursue the mistreatment and disrespect shown to blacks on the buses
  • burdens of enforcing change lay with MIA and individual bus users
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MIA after the boycott

conducted weekly training sessions with a total attendance of around 100 - to prepare them on how to return to the buses

distributed ''integrated bus suggestions'' leaflets

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Montgomery Board of Commissioners

Montgomery Board of Commissioner’s statement on Supreme Court Decision – “we have no alternative but to recognize it. That is not to say, however that we will not continue, through every legal means at our disposal, to see that the separation of the races is continued on the public transportation system here in Montgomery”

o   warned Negroes there would be bloodshed if they attempted to integrate

o   refused to provide police protection after dark and announced this publicly

o   but did not attempt to bar or expel blacks for sitting in former white seats

o   did not challenge the legitimacy of Gayle

o   city officials did not subsidise or authorise a bus company that would serve whites only

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Why did the city accept integrated buses?

reputation was damaged - particularly after bombings

huge financial burden of increased traffic policing, court case costs and policing

lost tax revenue of $15,000 from bus company

up to 30% decrease in business for downtown white businesses

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Differing situation for women

women leaders usually faced less job security as activists

  • males, often as ministers, only had to answer to their black churches
  • women, often as maids, nannys, teachers or cooks had to answer to whites

Robinson and other black women professor involved in the boycotts eventually had to resign from their positions

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Streetcar boycotts 1900-2 - Meier

There had previously been a 2-year boycott by ***** citizens of the streetcars of Montgomery upon the introduction of a segregation bill - 1900-1902

''the boycotts at the turn of the century came at a tme when southern white hostility and northern white indifference were reaching their peak...''

in every state and many cities which passed segregation laws across the south between 1891 and 1906, their enforcement precipitated ***** boycotts

Jacksonville 1901, Montgomery and Mobile 1902, Florida 1905, New Orleans, 1902-3, Little Rock 1903 etc. etc

after 2 years in Montgomery, the company was so hard hit it simply suspended enforcement of the law - but Jim Crow arrangements were quietly reinstated

ministers were also often the chief supporters of the boycotts 

Atlanta 'Constitution' marvelled at the Montgomery boycott ''suprising persistency...the company reports that the receipts of the line have fallen off fully 25%''

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Baker's role in the bus boycotts

Baker formed a group with Randolph, Rustin- called In Friendship - scheduled events to raise money for the Montgomery effort

Baker, as opposed to King, believed in the momentum of the CR after the success of the MBB

Baker sent out the call to found the SCLC - more than 60 ministers were in attendance

Baker on the SCLC ''I knew from the beginning that as a woman, an older woman, in a group of ministers who were largely as supporters, there was no place for me to come into a leadership role''

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