1955- The Montgomery Bus Boycott
On March 2nd, 1955, a young colored woman, Claudette Colvin, enters a bus of the public transport system in Montgomery, Alabama. When another white man follows, she is told by the driver to stand up to allow to him to sit, as part of the Jim Crow laws. She refused, saying it was her constitutional right to sit there, having paid her fee. Police officers then arrived, dragging her off the school bus in handcuffs. "All I remember is that I was not going to walk off the bus voluntarily," Colvin would later remember.
Unfortunately, there would be many other women similar to Colvin who were quietly fined or taken into custody for refusing to yield to the white man’s rules. A more commonly known case, that of Rosa Parks is often recalled. Parks, a seamstress, had had a long work day and was riding the bus home when she was also asked to move for a white person. When she refused, she faced similar consequences. On December 1st, Parks was arrested for disorderly conduct. She was then convicted and fined. By the 5th, a bus boycott was staged with 90% participation. The Montgomery Improvement Association was then formed by colored leaders who elected Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as the president. There was a great amount of support for MIA. The boycott continued for over year with the MIA organizing carpools, taxis charging only 10 cents to people of color, and many choosing to walk. After failed negotiations and the US Supreme Court’s final decision to end segregation, the full and desegregated bus service went into effect in Montgomery on December 21st, 1956. The year long sacrifice of simple transportation by the colored community during the Montgomery bus boycott was crucial to the advancement of civil rights because it directly affected states in the deep south (such as Alabama), as it was finally made unconstitutional to segregate buses, which opened the doors for many other movements. |
Rosa Parks' arrest.
Carpool system organized by the MIA.
Parks rides the newly integrated bus.
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