EVERFI 306: AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY 4.3 MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT

Introduction

One day in 1955, Rosa Parks boarded her usual bus like she did every day after work. She paid her fare, walked to the back of the bus and sat in the very front row of the “colored” section.

During this time, buses were segregated, meaning there were different sections for white and African-American riders.

As more people got on Rosa’s bus the driver got up and moved the “colored” sign back a row to make room for white riders. This meant that the row Rosa was sitting in was now in the “whites only” section. The driver asked Rosa and the other African-American riders to get up so the white passengers could sit down.

It happened every day. But Rosa Parks was tired. She wasn’t tired from working, at least no more than usual. She was tired of giving in.

Describing the event, Rosa said, “We didn’t move at the beginning, but he says, ‘Let me have these seats.’ And the other three people moved, but I didn’t.” In fact, when the man next to her got up, she moved from the aisle seat to the window.

Rosa Parks said years later, “When that driver stepped back toward us, when he waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats, I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night.”

The driver asked her again to move, but she refused. He then called the police, who came to arrest her.

Rosa Parks was arrested and then bailed out of jail a few hours later. By Sunday, plans for a bus boycott were announced at churches all over Montgomery. There was even a front page article about the incident in the morning paper, The Montgomery Advertiser. The leaders of the boycott had three demands. One, that everyone be treated with courtesy. Two, that African American drivers would be hired to drive the bus routes. Three, that seating on the bus would be first-come, first-served.

The original plan was that the boycott would be for the day of Rosa Park’s trial. But the boycott lasted far longer than one day, it lasted nearly 13 months! Before long its effect would be felt across the entire country. EVERFI 306: AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY 4.3 MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT

Let’s explore what happened.

Content

* The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) organized the bus boycott. Lead by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the original aim of the boycott was that no one would ride city buses on Monday, December 5, the day of Rosa Parks trial. Instead, the boycott lasted for over a year and nearly bankrupted the city bus system. The city eventually passed an ordinance (a city law) that desegregated the buses.

* Martin Luther King Jr. was the pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, a center for organizing the bus boycott. To support the boycott, African-American taxi drivers charged 10 cents a ride (the same as bus fare). On December 8, 1955, the city ordered that any cab driver who charged less than 45 cents would pay a fine. In response, the MIA organized a carpool with over 300 cars.

* On January 30, 1956 opponents of the boycott threw a stick of dynamite onto the porch of Martin Luther King Jr.’s home. His wife, Coretta Scott King was in the living room when they heard it land. They ran to the back room where King’s daughter, Yolanda, was sleeping. The dynamite exploded, shattering front windows and blowing a hole in the porch.

* Three-fourths of the riders on Montgomery buses were African American, and many of the remaining customers were either sympathetic to or uncomfortable with the boycott. During the boycott, at rush hour, the sidewalks were clogged with people walking home.

* Rosa Parks was not the first person to protest discrimination on the buses. Several people, including Aurelia Browder, had already refused to stand. During the Boycott, the US District Court (a Federal court) ruled in Browder v. Gayle that segregated buses violated the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This states that all citizens have a right to equal protection under the law (equal protection meaning that the laws must apply equally to all people). On December 20, 1956 all buses in Alabama were desegregated.