Montgomery+Bus+Boycott

=Montgomery Bus Boycott, Alabama =

The Motgomery Bus Boycott was a politcal and social protest campaign which started in 1955 in Montgomery Alabama. There were many significant characters involved in this boycott but the most significant would be Rosa Parks. In Montgomery, Alabama on the 1st December, a forty two year old lady called Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus for a white person. During that time, the law made it clear that the front section of the bus were saved for white people only, but if the seat was not needed by a white person, African-American's were welcome to sit at the back. Parks, who was sitting behind the whites only area, did not give up her seat when the bus driver told her to move because the 'whites only' section was full. When the bus driver realised that Ms Parks did not plan to move, he called the police and she was arrested. When Rosa Parks was found guilty on December 5th, Parks was fined $10 with an additional court cost of $4, but she appealed. The boycott was tirggered by her arrest. As a result, Rosa Parks is considered one of the pioneers of the civil rights movement. In a protest against the arrest of Rosa Parks and the segregation of the African Americans from the white people, the African American society, which made up 75 percent of the amount of people using the Montgomery Transport system, started a strike and no longer used the public Buses. This movement lasted 381 days and was an addition to their on going protests on the segregation within schools and society towards their race. The African Americans eventually won the protest and wiped all segregated seating on public buses through out the United States.

When E.D Nixon heard about the arrest, he called the police to find out way but only got a bitter reply from the police saying "none of your damn business." When he found out the story about Rosa Parks from a lawyer named Clifford Durr, Nixon went to jail and posted bond for Parks. He then asked for her permission so with that they can break the segregation. Rosa Parks agreed.

On the night of Parks arrest, Jo Ann Robinson, head of the Womens Politcal Council, printed and circulated a flyer throughout Montgomery's black community which read as follows:

//"Another woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down. It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing. This has to be stopped. Negroes have rights too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negro, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother. This woman's case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don't ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday. You can afford to stay out of school for one day if you have no other way to go except by bus. You can also afford to stay out of town for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off all buses Monday." (The Boston Globe)//

The next morning, a meeting ran by Luther King Jr, a city wide boycott was of public transit was proposed to demand a fixed dividing line for the segregated sections of the bus. Such a line would have meant that if the white section of the bus was oversubscribed, whites would have to stand; blacks would not be forced to remit their seats to the whites. One 3rd December it was evident that the black community would support the bus boycott, and very few blacks rode the buses that day. The boycott proved extremely effective,with enough riders lost to the city transit system to cause serious economic distress. Pressure increased across the country and on June 4, 1956, the federal district court ruled that Alabama's racial segregation laws for buses were unconstitutional. However, an appeal kept the segregation intact, and the boycott continued until, finally, on November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court upheld the district court's ruling. This victory led to a city ordinance that allowed black bus passengers to sit virtually anywhere they wanted, and the boycott officially ended December 20, 1956. The boycott of the buses had lasted for 381 days. Martin Luther King, Jr. capped off the victory with a magnanimous speech to encourage acceptance of the decision. The Montgomery Bus Boycott also had ramifications that reached far beyond the desegregation of public buses and provided more than just a positive answer to the Supreme Court's action against racial segregation. The Montgomery Bus Boycott reverberated throughout the United States and stimulated the national Civil Rights Movement (Wright H.R. 1991). The boycott resulted in the U.S. civil rights movement receiving one of its first victories and gave Martin Luther King, Jr. the national attention that made him one of the prime leaders of the cause.



[] media type="youtube" key="RzTkHrRkhpA" height="385" width="480" Foundation, W. (2010, June 1). //Montgomery Bus Boycott//. Retrieved June 2, 2010, from Wikipedia: []

Cozzens, L (June 29, 1998), The Montgomery Bus Boycott. [Online] last visited: 9 June, 2010. Available: []

Toonari (N.A) Montgomery Bus Boycott. [Online] Last visited: 9 June, 2010. Available: []

Wright, H. R: //The Birth of the Montgomery Bus Boycott//, page 123. Charro Book Co.,Inc.,1991. ISBN 0-9629468-0-X