The Montgomery Bus Boycott

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign started in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama. The law said that black people had to sit in the back of the bus while the the white people sat in the front. Bus drivers often referred to black people on the bus as nigger, black cow, or black ape. Blacks had to pay in the front of the bus and they had to get off to go threw the side door to sit in the back.

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.

“For many years now Negroes in Montgomery and so many other areas have been inflicted with the paralysis of crippling fears on buses in our community. On so many occasions, Negroes have been intimidated and humiliated and impressed-oppressed-because of the sheer fact that they were Negroes.”

The Montgomery Bus Boycott began with the public arrest of an African American woman and civil rights activist named Rosa Parks. As stated in Document A,”Rosa Parks boarded a city bus and sat down in the closest seat. It was one of the first rows of the section where blacks were not supposed to sit… The bus driver told Rosa Parks that she would have to give up her seat to a white person. She refused and was arrested.” Rosa’s arrest sparked a number of radical events that fought against racial inequality and segregation over the span of thirteen months. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was successful because it led to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that racial segregation among public transportation (especially buses) was unconstitutional. The Montgomery

The Montgomery bus boycott, a seminal event in the Civil Rights Movement, was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. The campaign lasted from December 5, 1955 which was the Monday after Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person to December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional. Many important figures in the Civil Rights Movement took part in the boycott, including Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy. Events leading up to the bus boycott.

Following the seemingly successful 1950’s Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, a protest for segregation where African Americans under the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) refused to ride Alabama buses, ending after 381 days when the Supreme Court ordered Alabama to integrate its bus systems, the state figuratively dragged its heels in changing its transit. In fact, ten years later when the Supreme Court ruled segregated buses unconstitutional nationwide, yet southern states still refused to integrate their buses, despite attending college for a ministerial career and knowing the likelihood that the southerners would violently resist, James L. Farmer Jr. , a Gandhi-influenced activist, saw the opportunity to hold these states accountable. To do so, Farmer, organizing what he came to call “Freedom Rides”, set out to train 12 volunteers along with himself in nonviolent protest to prepare the riders to ride through those stubborn states, in turn desegregating them . While acquiring his degree from Howard University, the college where he decided to co-found and Direct the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Farmer studied Gandhi, this strongly influencing the activist to approach the protest peacefully . Choosing to model the Freedom Rides after a similar bus protest, Farmer followed Bayard Rustin’s “Journey of Reconciliation”; however, unlike Rustin, Farmer emphasized thoroughly training his riders in a three-day workshop that focused on

Before Rosa Park started the Bus Boycott. There was a young woman her name was Colvin Claudette. Colvin was student at Booker T. Washington High School. On March 2, 1955, she boarded a public bus and, shortly thereafter, refused to give up her seat to a white man. Colvin was coming home from school that day. At the same place Rosa boarded another month later. She was sitting two seats from the emergency exit. Until four white people boarded the bus , and the bus driver ordered her, along with three other black people. Colvin still did not move. She said, “ I was thinking about slavery fighters she had read about recently during Negro History Week in February.”

The Montgomery Bus Boycotts had an influential purpose by boycotting the transportation system in order to create equality for those who were denied the right to sit where they pleased. Parks courageous act allowed others to speak up as well, resulting in protests against the busses. The compromise came about when thousands refused to use the public transportation, and companies began to lose money. The boycotting of busses resulted into many forms of protests for equality amongst schools, jobs and other activities that were made segregated. Eventually, on November 13th, 1956, segregation was ruled illegal on public transportation.

The Montgomery bus boycott was one of the major events in the civil rights movement in the united states. Before 1955, segregation between the races was common in the south. In public areas, all black people were separated from white people - in schools, restaurants, restrooms, and water fountains. Rosa parks got arrested and fined 10 dollars.

Did you know that the Montgomery Bus Boycott is After Rosa Park's arrest civil rights organizations began handing out flyers calling for a boycott of the Montgomery bus system starting on December 5th (1955) the day Parks was to appear in municipal court. Before I can talk about the Montgomery Bus Boycott I have to tell you what it is; the Montgomery Bus Boycott is when African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating, took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the United States (history.com). Back in the 1950’s segregation was real bad and many people do not know the reason the Montgomery Bus Boycott

The American civil rights movement took place in the 1950s-60s. I'm going to write about the Montgomery bus boycott and Woolworth’s Lunch Counter protest.

In the late eighteen hundreds, the Reconstruction by Congress was overturned by the Supreme Court. Segregation or separation by skin color was made a law which was adopted by private organizations, institutions and businesses (loc.gov). Physical violence and mental harassment was imposed upon those whom were deemed inferior in color. Some citizens accepted the law, as is, without question while others believed it was their supreme right to remain separate without modification. Human activists, that opposed this way of living, pursued an extensive battle to abolish racial inequity and segregation from American life (loc.gov). During the nineteen hundreds, many understood this treatment as an offense to human beings and activists began

The 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott, the result of Rosa Parks protest, ended on December 20th, 1956. This was one of the most successful mass movements against racial segregation in history. Because of Rosa Parks' brave protest, she was awarded the Martin Luther King Award, Presidential Medal of Freedom given by President Bill Clinton on September 9, 1999 and Congressional Medal in 1999.

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.