The Heroes Behind Montgomery's Bus Boycott

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a social and political protest against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. The boycott lasted from December 5, 1955, four days after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger, to December 20, 1956, when the federal ruling Browder v. Gayle took effect, leading to a US Supreme Court decision that declared Alabama and Montgomery's segregation laws on buses unconstitutional. While Parks' action is often viewed as the catalyst for the boycott, it was actually the culmination of years of activism and organizing by Black women in Montgomery, particularly the members of the Women's Political Council (WPC), led by Jo Ann Robinson.

The arrest of Rosa Parks

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African-American seamstress, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a crowded bus. Parks was seated in the front row of the 'coloured section' of the bus, and when the white seats filled up, the driver, J. Fred Blake, asked Parks and three others to vacate their seats. The other three Black riders complied, but Parks refused.

Parks was arrested and fined $10, plus $4 in court fees. This was not her first encounter with Blake. In 1943, she had paid her fare at the front of his bus, then exited so she could re-enter through the back door, as required. Blake pulled away before she could re-board. Parks was active in the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and served as its secretary. She was also an advisor to the NAACP Youth Council.

Upon her arrest, Parks called E.D. Nixon, a prominent Black leader, who bailed her out of jail. Nixon and other African-American leaders decided that Parks would be an ideal plaintiff in a legal challenge of the segregation ordinance. They also decided to attack the ordinance using other tactics.

The Women's Political Council (WPC), a group of Black women working for civil rights, began circulating flyers calling for a boycott of the bus system on December 5, the day Parks would be tried in municipal court. The boycott was organized by WPC President Jo Ann Robinson.

Montgomery's African-American community mobilized, with Black ministers announcing the boycott in church on Sunday, December 4, and the local newspaper, the Montgomery Advertiser, publishing a front-page article on the planned action. On December 5, approximately 40,000 Black bus riders—the majority of the city's bus riders—boycotted the system. That afternoon, Black leaders met to form the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), electing Martin Luther King Jr., the 26-year-old pastor of Montgomery's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, as its president. They decided to continue the boycott until the city met their demands.

The boycott lasted 381 days and was extremely effective, causing serious economic distress to the city transit system. King later wrote, " [a] miracle had taken place." Instead of riding buses, boycotters organized a system of carpools, with car owners volunteering their vehicles or themselves driving people to various destinations. Some white housewives also drove their Black domestic servants to work. Black taxi drivers charged ten cents per ride, equal to the cost of riding the bus, in support of the boycott.

The boycott ended on December 20, 1956, when the federal ruling Browder v. Gayle took effect, and the United States Supreme Court declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional. Parks' arrest and the subsequent boycott are regarded as foundational events in the civil rights movement in the United States.

The role of the Women's Political Council

The Women's Political Council (WPC) was an organization of Black women active in anti-segregation activities and politics. It was established for African American professional women in Montgomery, Alabama, and was founded in 1946 by American educator Mary Fair Burks, then an English professor at Alabama State College. The council initially consisted primarily of Montgomery public school teachers and college professors who encouraged voter registration, organized adult and youth education programs, and sought to include African Americans in local civic groups.

In the early 1950s, the WPC, under the leadership of Jo Ann Robinson, another English professor at Alabama State, met regularly with city officials to discuss the mistreatment of African American bus riders. Robinson and other African American leaders presented three complaints: firstly, that African American patrons were forced to stand by empty white-only seats; secondly, there were fewer stops in African American neighbourhoods; and thirdly, African American patrons were expected to pay fares at the front of the bus, exit, and then re-enter at the rear to take their seats. However, the meeting with city officials failed to generate change.

In March 1954, officials with the bus company agreed to increase the number of bus stops in African American neighbourhoods. But community frustration continued to grow, and in May 1954, Robinson wrote a letter to Mayor W.A. Gayle reiterating the problem and indicating that support for a boycott of city buses was increasing.

In March 1955, 15-year-old African American Claudette Colvin was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus. The WPC helped to arrange further meetings among Black leaders, the bus company, and city officials, and made arrangements for a boycott. However, implementation of the plans was postponed until council members could ensure widespread community support.

In December 1955, following the arrest of African American civil rights activist Rosa Parks, who committed the same offence as Colvin, Robinson and the WPC decided to act. Robinson drafted flyers calling for a boycott on Monday, December 5—the day of Parks' trial. With the help of an Alabama State faculty member and two students, Robinson printed and distributed 50,000 of the flyers throughout the city.

The WPC was largely responsible for publicizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott. They also held all four paid staff positions of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), the organization established to manage the boycott. In addition, WPC leaders, particularly Robinson, were central in boycott negotiations.

The election of Martin Luther King Jr

The election of King as the leader of the MIA occurred shortly after the arrest of Rosa Parks, an African-American woman who refused to surrender her seat to a white person. The night of Parks' arrest, the Women's Political Council, led by Jo Ann Robinson, printed and distributed 50,000 flyers calling for a boycott of the bus system. The next day, a meeting was organized at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where local black leaders formed the MIA to spearhead the boycott and negotiate with the bus company.

King was chosen as the president of the MIA due to his status as a new but charismatic preacher in Montgomery. Under his leadership, the boycott was incredibly successful, with over 70% of the city's bus patrons, who were mostly African American, participating. The MIA established a carpool system, with over 200 people volunteering their cars and approximately 100 pickup stations within the city. King's commitment to non-violent civil disobedience, inspired by Gandhi, became a hallmark of the civil rights movement.

The boycott lasted for 381 days and ended on December 20, 1956, when the Supreme Court ruled that Alabama's bus segregation laws were unconstitutional. The Montgomery Bus Boycott is considered a foundational event in the civil rights movement, bringing national attention to the struggle for racial equality and establishing King as a prominent leader in the fight for civil rights. King's role in the boycott also solidified his commitment to non-violent resistance, which he continued to advocate for throughout his involvement in the civil rights movement.

The Claudette Colvin incident

On March 2, 1955, Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old Black student at Booker T. Washington High School in Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. Colvin was one of the first to challenge Montgomery's bus segregation policies, but her act of defiance was largely ignored for many years.

Colvin was seated in the colored section of the bus, about two seats away from an emergency exit. When a white woman boarded the bus and was left standing in the front, the bus driver, Robert W. Cleere, commanded Colvin and three other Black women in her row to move to the back. The other three moved, but another Black woman, Ruth Hamilton, who was pregnant, sat next to Colvin. The bus driver then asked Colvin and Hamilton to get up, but they refused. The police arrived and convinced a Black man sitting behind the two women to move so that Hamilton could move back, but Colvin still refused to move. She was forcibly removed from the bus and arrested by the two policemen, Thomas J. Ward and Paul Headley.

Colvin later said, "My mother told me to be quiet about what I did. She told me to let Rosa be the one: white people aren't going to bother Rosa, they like her." Colvin did not receive the same attention as Rosa Parks for several reasons: she did not have "good hair", she was not fair-skinned, she was a teenager, and she was pregnant. Leaders in the Civil Rights Movement tried to maintain a certain image and make the "most appealing" protesters the most visible.

Colvin was initially charged with disturbing the peace, violating the segregation laws, and battering and assaulting a police officer. She was convicted on all three charges in juvenile court. When Colvin's case was appealed to the Montgomery Circuit Court on May 6, 1955, the charges of disturbing the peace and violating the segregation laws were dropped, although her conviction for assaulting a police officer was upheld.

Colvin's moment of activism was not solitary or random. In high school, she had ambitions of political activity and dreamed of becoming the President of the United States. Her political inclination was fueled in part by an incident with her schoolmate, Jeremiah Reeves, who was executed for allegedly raping a white woman, although he claimed their relations were consensual.

Colvin was one of four plaintiffs in the first federal court case filed by civil rights attorney Fred Gray on February 1, 1956, as Browder v. Gayle, to challenge bus segregation in the city. In a United States district court, Colvin testified before a three-judge panel that heard the case. On June 13, 1956, the judges determined that the state and local laws requiring bus segregation in Alabama were unconstitutional. The case went to the United States Supreme Court on appeal by the state, which upheld the district court's ruling on November 13, 1956. One month later, the Supreme Court affirmed the order to Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation. The Montgomery bus boycott was then called off after a few months.

Colvin gave birth to a son, Raymond, in March 1956. She left Montgomery for New York City in 1958 because she had difficulty finding and keeping work following her participation in the federal court case that overturned bus segregation. In New York, she initially lived with her older sister, Velma Colvin, and in 1960, she gave birth to her second son, Randy. Claudette began working as a nurse's aide in a nursing home in Manhattan in 1969 and retired in 2004. Raymond Colvin died in 1993 in New York of a heart attack at age 37. Her son Randy is an accountant in Atlanta and the father of Colvin's four grandchildren.

The success of the boycott

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a resounding success, with far-reaching consequences for the Civil Rights Movement. It was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. The success of the boycott can be attributed to several factors, including strong organization and leadership, grassroots support, and effective strategies.

Strong Organization and Leadership

The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), coordinated the boycott, and its president, Martin Luther King, Jr., became a prominent civil rights leader. King, a charismatic young pastor, was new to Montgomery and thus had a neutral standing with the various factions of the African American community. He was also a powerful orator, which helped rally support for the boycott.

The MIA was formed by a group of local ministers and black leaders, including E.D. Nixon, a prominent Black leader, and Jo Ann Robinson, president of the Women's Political Council (WPC). The WPC, founded in 1946, had been advocating for improved conditions on the buses for a decade before the boycott. They played a crucial role in the success of the boycott by printing and distributing leaflets and organizing meetings.

Grassroots Support

The boycott received overwhelming support from Montgomery's African American community, who made up about 75% of the bus ridership. On December 5, 1955, the day of the boycott, 90% of African American bus riders stayed off the buses. This high level of participation continued throughout the boycott, despite efforts by city officials and white citizens to defeat it. African American leaders organized regular mass meetings to keep residents mobilized and informed about the boycott's progress.

Effective Strategies

The MIA and its supporters employed a variety of effective strategies to sustain the boycott. They organized carpools, with over 200 volunteers offering their vehicles and approximately 100 pickup stations within the city. They also arranged for insurance for the cars through Lloyd's of London when the city pressured local insurance companies to stop insuring cars used in the carpools.

Black taxi drivers supported the boycott by charging only 10 cents per ride, equal to the bus fare, for African American riders. When the city retaliated by fining these taxi drivers, the MIA organized a sophisticated carpool system with about 300 cars.

In addition to using private motor vehicles, some boycott participants used non-motorized means of transportation, such as bicycles, or even walked long distances to their destinations.

National Attention and Legal Victory

The boycott gained national attention, with more than 100 reporters visiting Montgomery to profile the effort and its leaders. This publicity brought increased pressure on the city and helped to sustain the boycott.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott demonstrated the power of nonviolent mass protest to challenge racial segregation and inspired similar campaigns across the South. It established Martin Luther King, Jr. as a national leader of the Civil Rights Movement and set a precedent for the use of nonviolent civil disobedience to fight injustice.

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