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,

supremacist group. The arrests largely brought an end to the busing-related violence. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a very important and vital part in the civil rights movement for many reasons. First, it was the one of the first mass protests on civil rights in the U.S. The Montgomery bus boycott set the stage for other large protests outside the court system to bring fair treatment for African Americans. Second, Martin Luther King came up as a prominent national leader of the civil rights movement while also.keeping true to his commitment to nonviolent protest. Shortly after the boycott' s end, he

An man from India deeply influenced a black man in America who persuaded black Americans to peacefully seek civil rights. Blacks in America were once slaves. They had neither freedom nor rights. Now, in the 20th century, segregation has been abolished and discrimination has largely been reduced and blacks are more able to live freely as American citizens. In Early 1950’s, blacks did not have civil rights, so they had to fight for their freedom. In 1955, blacks decided to rally together for social justice and planned a boycott. This boycott became known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This boycott was pivotal in the Civil Right Movement by energizing blacks, particularly in the South, to become more involved in politics. This occurred with

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.

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

“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

Rosa Parks once said, “Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.” Rosa Parks was an African- American women in Montgomery, Alabama, who believed in civil rights for African-Americans. It was a time of segregation, the separation of blacks and whites. For instance, blacks were required to sit in the back of the bus, and white people sat in the front of the bus.

contended that the refusal to admit the children to the school was a denial of

The success of the boycott of the Montgomery buses and the court case Brown vs. Board of education led African Americans into the 1960’s with the belief that non-violent protest and legal action could make a difference. In the beginning of the 1960’s, students held sit in’s at segregated lunch counters throughout the south. February 1st 1960, was the day of the first sit in at a segregated lunch counter. Four seventeen year old freshman at North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro- Franklin Mccain, Ezell Blair Jr., Joseph Mcneil, and David Richmond- peacefully and politely took seats at the lunch counter and asked for coffee. “By the end of the month similar protest were beginning in thirty one cities and seven southern states” (“The

This boycott that lasted for more than a year, also demonstrated the unity and determination of black residents and inspired blacks elsewhere to stand up for their rights. The Montgomery bus boycott marked the beginning of a new era for the CRM, it has been called the second reconstruction, as it was the beginning of the last great battle blacks had to fight to gain equal rights with whites. This is what Rosa Parks, whose bold act of defiance helped ignite this boycott to occur. The event with Till was also a catalyst, as it inspired Parks to act with this bold personal defiance. MLK also became the new leader because of his believe in nonviolence. It was proved the perfect tactic to achieve equality. This peaceful response to the violence persuaded many whites of justice of giving black their rights and the evil of racist opposition to

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

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.