Association's Involvement With The Montgomery Bus Boycott

On December 1, 1955, I was on a Montgomery bus and all was calm. I then proceeded to sit by my friend Rosa Parks. We were just having a nice conversation when the driver told us we had to get up,stand, or get off of the bus. I got up and stood in the very back and looked and Rosa wasn’t with me. She was still sitting in her seat. A little later I heard some yelling and in the blink of an eye, Rosa was off of the bus and the police were arresting her. The last thing I ever heard from her was when the bus driver told her he was going to call the police, she said,

The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, an independent legal aid group, argues in court on behalf of the NAACP and other civil-rights groups. Along with the NAACP, it was instrumental in helping to bring about the Supreme Court's ruling (1954) against segregated public education in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans. Case (Spartacus 1).     The strategy shifted after Brown, however, to "direct action"--primarily bus boycotts, sit-ins, freedom rides, and similar movements-- from 1955 to 1965. In part this was the unintended result of the local authorities' attempt to outlaw and harass the mainstream civil rights organizations throughout the Deep South. The State of Alabama had effectively barred the NAACP from operating in Alabama by requiring it to give the state a list of its members. In the South of the 1950s, that would have exposed every member of the NAACP to retaliation, from being fired to being firebombed. While the United States Supreme Court ultimately reversed the order, for a few years in the mid 1950s

Constitution. The 14th amendment guarantees all citizens, regardless of race, equal rights and equal protection under state and federal laws. The city appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court's decision on December 20, 1956. Montgomery's buses were integrated on December 21, 1956, and the boycott ended. It had lasted 381 days. Even though in the eyes of the law the buses were integrated and the issue had been dealt with, African Americans still had to go through adversity and resistance from white people that usually resulted in violence. While the busses were integrated the people of Montgomery, Alabama figured out a new way to discriminate against African Americans, they retaliated with integrated bus stops and even violence. Occasionally snipers were paid to fire into public busses at African Americans in order to kill them and send a message. In January 1957, four black churches and the homes of prominent black leaders were bombed; a bomb at King's house was defuseq. On January 30, 1957, the Montgomery police arrested seven bombers; all were members of the Ku Klux Klan, a white

At this time, other local activists have been looking for an occasion to start a boycott of the Montgomery buses, where segregation was especially hurting black people. Most of the teachers of Montgomery, called for a one-day protest against the bus line, asking the blacks to stay at home or find another way to get to work or school. This strike hurted the bus system. The success of that one-day protest persuaded Montgomery civil rights leaders to organize a larger scale boycott of the buses.

On the morning of parks trial buses rumbled nearly empty through the streets of Montgomery. By the next morning the council led by Jo Ann Robinson had printed 52,000 fliers asking, Montgomery blacks to stay off the buses. It was an important and an accepted rule that whites sit in the front and the African American riders had to sit in the back of all buses. A group of about 50 African American leaders and one white minister, Robert Graetz, gathered in the basement of Dr. King?s church to endorse the boycott and begin planning a massive rally.

Who was Claudette Colvin? Well, Claudette Colvin is the first person ever to refuse to get out of her seat. She was an important civil rights activist who had a big impact on the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

African American protests challenged the Jim Crow act during the Eisenhower administration. Several cases and organizations were created to fight against segregation. For example, the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was raising funds to challenge segregation in education, and the Plessy v. Ferguson court case led to the creation of “separate, but equal.” Earl Warren thought the “separate, but equal” was not a good idea because black and white people were very different. Thus, the Ferguson court case was illegal because it was violating the 14th amendment. In March, 1956, the Southern Manifesto was signed by up to 100 men in the government to complain about the court’s abuse of judicial power. According to google, the Montgomery bus boycott lasted for about a year from 1955-56. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., responded with a boycott of the city bus system that started with Rosa Parks refusing to give her seat to a white person. The Montgomery bus boycott made MLK Jr. a good leader and became the leader of Southern Christian Leadership Conference in

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was successful because the protesters used nonviolence, the community helped each other, and the car pool was a major step in outcome. First of all, on March 22, 1956, Martin Luther King Jr. gives a speech and he states, “Democracy gives us this right to protest and that is all we are doing. We can say honestly that we have not advocated violence, have not practiced it, and have gone courageously on with a Christian movement”. This statement exemplifies that the protesters have done nothing wrong and they don’t plan on using violence. To continue, in a letter by Virginia Foster Durr written on January 30, 1956, she writes,“I think it is the first time that a whole Negro community has ever stuck together this way and

They organized the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to plan the event and oversee its progress. Martin Luther King Jr. was elected president of the association, partly because he was a powerful speaker, and partly because he hadn’t been a part of the community long enough to have any enemies. The initial demands made by the MIA were only for courteous treatment, first serve seating, and job opportunities for African Americans to become bus drivers, however, these demands later expanded throughout the protest. Plans for the boycott were announced to the community by black ministers at Church on December 4. The Montgomery Advertiser, a general-interest newspaper, [also] published a front-page article on the planned action (history.com.) On top of that, the WPC passed out flyers informing the community of the boycott on December 5. By that same day the African American citizens of Montgomery were ready and willing to begin the thirteen month long protest for

In his diary entry, Rustin states that, “42,000 Negroes have not ridden the busses since December 5… the police began to harass, intimidate, and arrest Negro taxi drivers who were helping get these people to work.” Rustin’s diary entry shows the atrocities African American citizens faced before the Montgomery Bus Boycott was successful. In Document D, Virginia Foster Durr, a white woman who supported African American civil rights, states in a letter that, “The Montgomery Bus Boycott is really making history… I think they [the Negro community] are going to win it.” Durr’s letter highlights the faith in African American civil rights, even among white folk during the Montgomery Bus Boycott events. Jo Ann Robinson, president of the Women’s Political Council that was made up of African American professional women, sent a respectful letter to the Mayor of Montgomery in 1954. Document B: Letter from Robinson to the Mayor states that, “We are happy to report that busses have begun stopping at more corners now in some sections where Negroes like than previously.” Robinson’s letter explicitly showcases the successful improvements the Montgomery Bus Boycott was making on

The NAACP grew rapidly starting with 9,000 member in 1917 to 90,000 in 1919 (“National Association”). This growth was detrimental to the Civil Rights movement, that involved such things as the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas court case where the Supreme Court declared segregation unconstitutional (Mathews). The Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 was also a case that the NAACP represented (Mathews). The NAACP continues today to “achieve equality of right and eliminate race prejudice among the citizens of the United States” (“National Association”). Without the support and inspiration from the NAACP, African Americans may never had many of the achievements in racial justice that they have in this

Prior to the bus boycott, Jim Crow laws enabled the racial segregation 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. The boycott also took place within a larger statewide and national movement for civil rights, including court cases such as Morgan v. Virginia, the earlier Baton Rouge bus boycott, and the arrest of Claudette Colvin.

Showing the significance of the front-to-back and back-to-front bus boarding, majority of the supporters who attended the mass meeting declined the offer and voted to keep the protest alive. As a result, approximately one hundred MIA members were indicted for disobeying the state anti-boycott law. The Alabama Council on Human Relations (ACHR), the only interracial organization in the Alabama, set up meetings between MIA leaders, bus and city officials. The representatives’ only concern was to settle the conflict, not to choose sides. In an attempt to schedule a meeting to resolve the protest, the ACHR Board member was denied. Alabama Mayor, W.A. Gayle, a church parishioner to the board member, was called to assist. Later, only at the suggestion of the Mayor, a plan to meet was arranged. Neither organization was successful in persuading a compromise amongst their counterparts.

As said by Rosa Parks,“You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right”.This means that when she sat in the front of the bus she was not fearful to get arrested and move because she wanted equal rights.The Civil Rights Movement was a mass popular movement for African Americans equal access to opportunities for the basic privileges and rights of U.S. citizenship. The African Americans were fighting for equal rights, and they wanted to be treated the same as everyone else. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and social activist, who led the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. A boycott is to stop using a product for example, the African Americans boycotted so they could stop riding the buses.The boycott was in Montgomery, Alabama. African Americans wanted to be equal to the whites because they were treated differently than the whites for everything. They wanted to be treated the way whites were being treated.The boycott took place in Alabama in 1955 and ended 1956.The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a successful protest because there were many ways besides the bus for African Americans to get around, the the bus companies lost money, and the protest were covered by the news.

During the Civil Rights movement of the 1950's and 60's, women played an undeniably significant role in forging the path against discrimination and oppression. Rosa Parks and Jo Ann Robinson were individual women whose efforts deserve recognition for instigating and coordinating the Montgomery Bus Boycotts of 1955 that would lay precedent for years to come that all people deserved equal treatment despite the color of their skin. The WPC, NAACP, and the Montgomery Churches provided the channels to organize the black public into a group that could not be ignored as well supported the black community throughout the difficult time of the boycott.