Chapter 28; the Civil Rights Movement*MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT*•Dec, 1, 1955; Rosa Parks, a seamstress&well known activist in Montgomery, was takenfrom a bus, arrested, and put in jail for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger•Drivers could order a whole row of black passengers to vacate their seats for one whiteperson. And black people had to pay their fears at the front&then enter throught the back•300,000+ AA organized a bus boycott•The day of the boycott; cars and pedestrians jammed Holt St. Baptist Church. Peoplepacked the church and spilled over into the sidewalks•26 yr. old Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. laid the key principles that would guide the boycott—nonviolence, Christian love, unity=”If we are wrong, justice is a lie”•Mrs. Parks, 12 years as a sec. of the local NAACP chapter•E.D. Nixon, pres. Of the Alabama NAACP and head of the local brotherhood of SleepingCar Porters union saw Mrs. Parks’s arrest as a case to take a stand. They formed theMontgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and choose Dr.King as their leader•Mrs. Park’s lawyer was Clifford Durr, a white liberal w/ a history of representing blackclients. His wife, Virginia, for whom Mrs.Parks worked as a seamstress for, was alongtime crusader against the poll tax that prevented many blacks from voting•Rev. Robert Graetz&Rev. Glann Smiley offered support for the MIA•Nixon organized black ministers, Jo Ann Robinson(an eng. Teacher @ Alabama StateCollege) spread the word and led the Women’s Political Council (WPC), an organizationof black professional women•MIA coordinated an elaborate system of car pools, using hundreds of private cars andvolunteer drivers to provide as many as 20,000 rides each day and many people walked•Local authorities refused to engage in serious negotiations•Police harassed boycotters w/ traffic tickets and arrests•White racists exploded bombs in Dr.King and E.D. Nixon’s homes•The boycott reduced the bus company’s revenues by 2/3•City officials obtained indictments against King, Nixon, and 113 other boycotts under anold law forbidding hindrance to business w/out “just cause” or legal excuse•A month late King was on trial, the judge found King guilty, fined him $1,000, releasedhim on bond pending appeal•June 4; a panel of 3 fed. Judges struck down Montgomery’s bus segregation ordinancesas unconst.•Supreme Ct. affirmed the district court ruling•After 2 mts. The boycotts had won•A series of local struggles to dismantle segregation—in the schools of Little Rock, in thedept. stores of ATL, in the lunch counters of Greensboro, in the streets of Birmingham•JFK and Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through the landmark Civil Rights Act and VotingRights Act•w/ white allies, the engaged in direct-actions protests such as boycotts, sit-ins, and masscivil disobedience and legal battles in state&federal courts•generational conflicts between AA students and their elders*Civil Rights after World War 2*
