who was elected to lead the montgomery bus boycott
2781370
The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was formed on December 5, 1955 by black ministers and community leaders in Montgomery, Alabama. Under the leadership of Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Edgar Nixon, the MIA was instrumental in guiding the Montgomery bus boycott, a successful campaign that focused national attention on racial segregation in the South and catapulted King into the national spotlight. History Following Rosa Parks' arrest on December 1, 1955 for failing to vacate her seat for a white passenger on a Montgomery city bus, Jo Ann Robinson of the Women's Political Council and E. D. Nixon of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) launched plans for a one-day boycott of Montgomery buses on December 5, 1955, the following Monday. According to Jo Ann Robinson,"Regular bus routes had to be followed so that workers who "walked along" the streets could be picked up. This committee, headed by Alfonso Campbell and staffed by volunteer workers, worked all night Friday to complete this phase of the program. The pickup system was so effectively planned that many writers described it as comparable in precision to a military operation. What the ministers failed to do at that meeting was to select one person who would head the boycott. Those present discussed it, pointing out the leadership preparation of various individuals, but no definite decision was made. That had to wait until Monday afternoon, when the ministers realized that the one day boycott was going to be successful. Then they met again, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., agreed to accept the leadership post."(National Humanities Center  The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, ed. David J. Garrow, 1987, Ch. 2.) Since no one knew what to expect, the empty buses were a complete surprise. The success of the boycott on December 5, and the excitement on the mass meeting on the evening of that day, removed any doubt about the strong motivation to continue the boycott. As King put it, "[t]he question of calling off the protest was now academic. The enthusiasm of these thousands of people swept everything along like an onrushing tidal wave." On the afternoon of December 5, the black leadership, consisting of civic and religious leaders of Montgomery, established the Montgomery Improvement Association. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was chosen to lead the MIA at the age of 26, with Ralph Abernathy, Jo Ann Robinson, E. D. Nixon, Rufus Lewis and other prominent figures at his side. Forming the Association At a meeting that evening attended by several thousand community members, the MIA was established to oversee the continuation and maintenance of the boycott, and King, a young minister new to Montgomery, was elected its chairman president. According to Rosa Parks, "Dr. King was chosen in part because he was relatively new to the community and so did not have any enemies." The organization's overall mission, extended beyond the boycott campaign, as it sought
Montgomery Improvement Association
10542482
Charles Kenzie Steele (February 17, 1914, in McDowell County, West Virginia – in Tallahassee, Florida) was a preacher and a civil rights activist. He was one of the main organizers of the 1956 Tallahassee bus boycott, and a prominent member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. On March 23, 2018, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed CS/SB 382 into law, designating portions of Florida State Road 371 and Florida State Road 373 along Orange Avenue in Tallahassee as C.K. Steele Memorial Highway. Background Steele was the son of a coal miner, an only child. At a young age, he knew that he wanted to be a preacher, and he started preaching when he was 15 years old. Steele graduated from Morehouse College in 1938. He then began preaching in Toccoa and Augusta, Georgia, then in Montgomery, Alabama, at the Hall Street Baptist Church (1938–1952). In 1952 Steele moved to Tallahassee, where he started preaching at the Bethel Missionary Baptist Church. Steele met Martin Luther King Jr. when he was on his way to Tallahassee. Tallahassee bus boycott The Tallahassee bus boycott began in May, 1956, during the Montgomery bus boycott. Like other bus boycotts during the Civil Rights Movement in America, it started because black people were forced to ride in the back of the bus, and when two students refused to give up their seat to a white woman, they were arrested. An organization was formed to protest and boycott against the city bus system. The organization was called Inter-civic Council and Steele was elected president. Steele and other protesters boycotted the system by starting car pools and the bus system had stopped for the first time in 17 years on July 1. Steele was arrested many times during this period. The people in Tallahassee thought that the protesters' demands were outrageous. Steele and the other protesters met a lot of rich and influential opposition. The Ku Klux Klan burned a cross in front of Steele's church, marched in front of his house, and threw bottles through his windows. The city commissioners were firmly opposed to integration of the buses. The bus system was integrated two years later. He was also the lead plaintiff in the school desegregation suit, which led to the desegregation of public schools in Leon County. Steele was also a part of many other protests, marches, and boycotts, where he helped to accomplish integration in many public places. Steele helped Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957. He was made the First Vice President under Dr. King at the time of the formation of SCLC. Steele participated in the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965. Steele died from bone marrow cancer in 1980 at the age of 66 in Tallahassee. Legacy When the city created a new bus terminal in 1983, it was named after Steele and a statue of him (by sculptor David Lowe) was placed on the NE corner of the terminal. Florida State University conferred on
Charles Kenzie Steele
53348747
Theodora Smiley Lacey (born 1932) is an American civil rights activist and educator. She helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott, fought for voting rights and fair housing, and helped lead the effort to integrate schools in New Jersey. Early life Lacey was born Theodora Smiley in 1932 in Montgomery, Alabama, and her parents were both educators. At that time, Alabama was highly segregated, Jim Crow laws were in force, and Montgomery became a center of the Civil Rights Movement. Lacey's family was deeply involved in the movement: her mother was a childhood friend of Rosa Parks, and her father, a high-school principal, was president of the board of directors of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in 1954 when the church chose their new pastor, Martin Luther King Jr. Lacey graduated from Alabama State College and worked as a science teacher in Alabama, Louisiana, and later New Jersey. Montgomery bus boycott Lacey's first direct involvement as a civil rights activist began in 1955 when her mother's friend, Rosa Parks, was arrested for sitting in the "white" section of a public bus. Montgomery's public transportation system had always been segregated, and other men, women and children had been arrested for similar offenses, but Parks' arrest triggered protests and calls for a boycott of the bus system. Church member and WPC president Jo Ann Robinson and pastor Dr. King emerged as leaders of the boycott movement and the Dexter Avenue Church became their de facto headquarters. Initially planned for just one day, the boycott lasted 381 days and ended only when the laws requiring segregated buses were struck down as unconstitutional. Lacey, who was teaching science at George Washington Carver High School by then, was very active in the boycott, working, she says, as a "gofer." She attended meetings and typed press releases for the movement. Many of the participants in the boycott were domestic workers who didn't own cars and relied on the bus system for their jobs. In addition to driving them herself, Lacey was an enthusiastic fundraiser for taxi drivers who supported the boycott by offering free or discounted rides to these boycott participants. She sent letters all over the country seeking donations to help with maintenance of the taxis. It was during the boycott that she met her future husband, Archie Lacey. Archie was a science professor at Alabama State College and met Theodora through his involvement in the bus boycott. The couple's courtship was brief, and they married on April 29, 1956, in the midst of the boycott. Dr. King had planned to officiate at the wedding, but was called away to New York on business; he did later baptize two of their four children. Once the boycott ended, the Laceys' civil rights activism continued. In the summer of 1957, she and her husband traveled throughout Alabama researching voter registration and injustice in the political system. Their research was used to support litigation against disenfranchisement of black voters in the state. Relocation to New Jersey In the late
Theodora Lacey
72953337
Transit Equality Day or "Transit Equity Day" is a holiday in honor of the civil rights leader Rosa Parks, celebrated in the United States on her birthday, February 4. Rosa Parks Day was created by a network of Unions, including the Labor Sustainability Network, in 2017. It was first celebrated federally by Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in 2021, gaining wider celebration in 2023. Observances by states, cities and counties Origins Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was a seamstress by profession; she was also the secretary for the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. Twelve years before her history-making arrest, Parks was stopped from boarding a city bus by driver James F. Blake, who ordered her to board at the back door and then drove off without her. Parks vowed never again to ride a bus driven by Blake. As a member of the NAACP, Parks was an investigator assigned to cases of sexual assault. In 1945, she was sent to Abbeville, Alabama, to investigate the gang rape of Recy Taylor. The protest that arose around the Taylor case was the first instance of a nationwide civil rights protest, and it laid the groundwork for the Montgomery bus boycott. In 1955, Parks completed a course in "Race Relations" at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee where nonviolent civil disobedience had been discussed as a tactic. On December 1, 1955, Parks was sitting in the frontmost row for black people. When a Caucasian man boarded the bus, the bus driver told everyone in her row to move back. At that moment, Parks realized that she was again on a bus driven by Blake. While all of the other black people in her row complied, Parks refused, and was arrested for failing to obey the driver's seat assignments, as city ordinances did not explicitly mandate segregation but did give the bus driver authority to assign seats. Found guilty on December 5, Parks was fined $10 plus a court cost of $4, but she appealed. Rosa Parks' action gained notoriety leading to the Montgomery bus boycott, which was a seminal event in the civil rights movement, and was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. The campaign lasted from December 1, 1955 – when Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person – to December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional. Many important figures in the civil rights movement took part in the boycott, including Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy. The 381-day boycott almost bankrupted the bus company and effectively made segregation in buses unconstitutional and illegal. See also Rosa Parks Day Claudette Colvin, who, nine months before Parks, refused to give up her seat on a
Transit Equality Day
56628766
And the Walls Came Tumbling Down is a 1989 autobiography written by civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. The book charts his life and work with his best friend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in their leadership of the Civil Rights Movement to help African Americans obtain equal rights with white Americans. His book engendered much controversy due to Abernathy's allegations of King's infidelity the night before he was assassinated. Background Ralph Abernathy was a leader of the civil rights movement, along with Martin Luther King Jr., whom he met in 1954; they eventually became close friends. Abernathy collaborated with King on many successful nonviolent movements, including their creation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which led to the Montgomery bus boycott. The King and Abernathy partnership spearheaded movements as well in Albany, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; Mississippi; Washington, D.C.; Selma, Alabama; St. Augustine, Florida; Chicago; Memphis, and other cities. King and Abernathy shared a close relationship in their participation in the movement, sometimes sharing the same hotel rooms and leisure time with family and friends. Their relationship was so strong that they would dine together frequently, and each other's children called the other "Uncle". They were jailed a total of 17 times together for their involvement in the movement. After King's assassination, Abernathy assumed control of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and continued to lead movements that he and King had discussed as well as other anti-segregation movements around the Capital Beltway. Abernathy's reasons for writing the book have been questioned; the book has been described as a biography of King as much as it is an autobiography of Abernathy. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about. It's always good to have your closest friend and associate to say something good about you, and Ralph Abernathy is the best friend that I have in the world. — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., during his last speech ever delivered I've Been to the Mountaintop Synopsis Abernathy relates the story of his close relationship with King. The book begins with details of his participation in the Montgomery bus boycott. He details how he was surprised to hear King's selection as leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), but stated that he wished he had nominated him for the role himself. The autobiography details how he was elected program organizer, which made him the chief organizer of activities for the group. Abernathy states how this working relationship worked well as it split most of the responsibilities of the MIA between himself and King. Abernathy asserts a very close relationship in the book, stating he and King "tried to meet for dinner every day" during the Montgomery boycott. The overall narrative paints an intertwined life between Abernathy and King. It details how King found Abernathy at an Atlanta church, and how the two became close friends and co-activists. The duo of Abernathy and King is described as being extremely
And the Walls Came Tumbling Down
33909077
Georgia Teresa Gilmore (February 5, 1920 – March 7, 1990) was an African-American woman from Montgomery, Alabama, who participated in the Montgomery bus boycott through her fund-raising organization, the Club from Nowhere, which sold food at Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) mass meetings. Her grass-roots activism helped sustain the 382-day boycott and inspired similar groups to begin raising money for the boycott. Background Georgia Gilmore was born in Montgomery County, Alabama on February 5, 1920. She was one of five children born to Janie Gilmore. As a child, she attended a parochial school ran by nuns at St. John the Baptist Catholic church. Throughout the course of her life, Gilmore worked as a midwife, a cook, a domestic worker, and she worked on the railroad. She lived in Montgomery with her six children, and during the 1950s, she supported her mother and helped raise her youngest sister and a niece. Known as a kind and motherly woman with incredible cooking skills, Gilmore had a bold personality and resisted the racial injustices common in Alabama during the 1950s. She was also a member of the local NAACP in Montgomery, where she worked with Rosa Parks and other NAACP workers to protest the discriminatory treatment African Americans experienced in Alabama. Before the start of the Montgomery bus boycott, Gilmore decided to stop riding city buses after her and her mother experienced discrimination on the bus. She was not afraid to confront white men and was fiercely protective of her family. Gilmore worked as a cook at the National Lunch Company, a restaurant, in downtown Montgomery in the 1950s. Bus Boycott and Gilmore's Activism After Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to leave her seat on December 1, 1955, the Women's Political Council declared a boycott of the bus system beginning on December 5. A group of civic leaders and ministers formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to help guide the boycott. Gilmore, who had already refused to use the buses in Montgomery, heard of the arrest on the news and announcements of the first MIA mass meeting to be held at Holt Street Baptist church on the evening of the boycott. Gilmore introduced herself to the Martin Luther King Jr., the president of the MIA, and joined the organization that night. Gilmore and her friends started a fundraising group called the Club from Nowhere to help support the operations of the boycott and the MIA. Georgia Gilmore, along with others testified about the discrimination they faced on city buses State of Alabama v. M. L. King, Jr. (1956). Her testimony and involvement with the boycott led to her departure from her job at the National Lunch Company. However, this did not stop Gilmore as she later said, "this new generation had decided that they just had taken as much as they could." Following her dismissal from the National Lunch Company, Martin Luther King Jr. (who lived nearby) and other MIA leaders helped Gilmore set up her own restaurant in her home as a
Georgia Gilmore
48539476
The Holt Street Baptist Church is a historic Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama, United States. The church served as a meeting place for Montgomery's black community during the Montgomery bus boycott. Built in 1913, the church closed in 1998, when the congregation moved to a new location in Montgomery. History The Holt Street Baptist Church was established in 1909. The church building, located at the corner of Holt Street and Bullock Street, was completed in 1913. The first reverend was I.S. Fountain. From 1939 until 1952, Charles Kenzie Steele was pastor. Montgomery bus boycott On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested after refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white passenger. In response, the Women's Political Council, an African-American civil rights organization founded in Montgomery, organized a boycott of the city's buses by members of the black community. A leaflet distributed to thousands of Montgomery's black citizens read: "don't ride the bus to work, to town, to school, or anyplace Monday, December 5". The final sentence read: "come to a mass meeting Monday at 7:00 pm at the Holt Street Baptist Church for further instructions". The boycott began the following Monday, December 5, 1955, the day Parks appeared in court. That evening, a mass meeting was held at the Holt Street Baptist Church to evaluate the boycott's success. The church was the largest and most central church in the black community, and had a large basement that could accommodate hundreds, as well as a spacious main auditorium. Loud speakers were placed into smaller rooms of the church, and there was a large outdoor area for people to gather. Several thousand attended the meeting, where a young pastor from the city's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., addressed the audience, describing the indignities suffered by Montgomery's black citizens and stating: "there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression." Rosa Parks wrote: By the time I arrived at the meeting, the church was so filled up that a crowd of hundreds spilled out into the street, and speakers had to be set up outside to accommodate everyone. The excitement around the church was electrifying, and I remember having a sense that something powerful was being born. I squeezed my way through the crowd to my seat on the platform, where a lively discussion about the boycott strategy was underway. The meeting at the Holt Street Baptist Church began the year-long Montgomery bus boycott. A court case, Browder v. Gayle, was launched claiming that bus segregation was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. On November 14, 1956, while the boycott continued, the Supreme Court ordered the state of Alabama to desegregate its buses. That evening, mass meetings were organized at both the Hutchinson Street Baptist Church and the Holt Street Baptist Church. King spoke at both meetings, where 8,000 attendees voted unanimously to end the boycott when the Supreme Court decision took effect. On
Holt Street Baptist Church
53716815
Joe Azbell (August 25, 1927 – September 30, 1995) was an American journalist and writer. He served as the city editor of the Montgomery Advertiser. Life Azbell was born in 1927 in Texas near the Oklahoma border. When Azbell was 7, his father died and his mother struggled to support her large family alone. At the age of 13, he ran away from home. He hitchhiked his way across the United States and Mexico, earning a living by picking cotton, washing dishes and selling and printing newspapers. He then joined the United States Army Air Corps, where he scored well on the Army General Classification Test. He was the top of his class at the Air Force's administration school and was sent to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery. He was the founder and editor of the Air University Dispatch, the official newspaper for the base. After his military service ended in 1946, Azbell moved to Selma where he founded his own newspaper. While in Selma, he also began writing speeches for pro-integration Governor Jim Folsom. He later moved to Montgomery, where he became the city editor for the Montgomery Advertiser. In his spare time, Azbell provided transport to hospitals for black children stricken with polio, as most members of the black community did not own a car. In 1954, Azbell received an honorary doctorate from Selma University, a historically black college. In 1956, local community leader E. D. Nixon gave Azbell a pamphlet by the Montgomery Improvement Association calling for a bus boycott. He published it on the front page of the Montgomery Advertiser, alerting local residents to begin the Montgomery bus boycott. Journalist Ted Poston later called Azbell the father of the bus boycott as Poston believed that many in the African-American community were unaware of the planned boycott prior to publication. Azbell interviewed many civil rights figures of the day such as Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, A. Philip Randolph and Rufus Lewis. He was the first reporter on the scene after King's home was bombed on January 30, 1956, and the first on the scene when E.D. Nixon's house was bombed two days later. Azbell later testified in King's favor when he was on trial in State of Alabama V. M. L. King, Jr. for inciting the boycott. Azbell also was a speechwriter for George Wallace. He developed Wallace's presidential campaign slogan "Send them a message". Azbell became "obsessed with the belief that the (Communist) Party had created a vast conspiracy operating through America's black community" that would lead to a race war. By the mid-1960s, Azbell's admiration of Martin Luther King Jr. had turned to the conviction that King was a danger to American society. In an analysis he shared with Wallace in "an ongoing dialogue," Azbell came to believe that King had manipulated public opinion by portraying their movement as one of unsophisticated Alabama police officers versus prayerful and forgiving blacks. He saw civil disturbances in Northern cities as unmasking the reality that,
Joe Azbell
8958465
Robert Sylvester Graetz Jr. (May 16, 1928 – September 20, 2020) was a Lutheran clergyman who, as the white pastor of a black congregation in Montgomery, Alabama, openly supported the Montgomery bus boycott, a landmark event of the civil rights movement. Biography Graetz, of German descent, was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, and educated in Columbus, Ohio. His father was an engineer with the Libbey-Owens-Ford Co. At Capital University in Bexley, Ohio, from which he graduated in 1950, he started a "campus race relations club"; Walter White, the leader of the NAACP, was one of the club's speakers. Graetz received a B.D. in 1955 from Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. He married Jean Ellis (known as Jeannie) on June 10, 1951, in East Springfield, Pennsylvania. They had seven children together. In 1958, the family moved back to Columbus, where Graetz became the minister of another Black church. Over the years that followed, he worked in Ohio, Kentucky, California, and Washington DC, where he spent 13 years as a lobbyist for marginalized individuals. In 2007, the Graetzes returned to Montgomery, Alabama, where they were actively involved in various civic activities including the diversity group One Montgomery and the League of Women Voters. Each year they hosted the annual Graetz Symposium at the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture at Alabama State University. Graetz condemned the white nationalist violence in Charlottesville in 2017, saying "When have we had a more violent or more negative or more hateful presidency? Never in our history. And that’s being accepted now as (something) we’re proud of. Now that there’s no longer a criterion, even if it’s the worst of times, we’re setting a standard for all of us. Now, (it’s) no longer a standard based on God. Now, instead what we see is television channels that are based on who can tell the most lies the most effectively." Graetz, who had Parkinson's disease and had been in hospice care for some time, died at his home in Montgomery on September 20, 2020. Role in civil rights movement Graetz's first full-time job as pastor was to a Black congregation, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, in Montgomery. He began working there in 1955, the year of the Montgomery bus boycott. A personal friend of Rosa Parks, Graetz became secretary of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organization founded to organize and support the boycott. The Sunday after Parks was arrested and the boycott began, he told his congregation, "Let’s try to make this boycott as effective as possible because it won’t be any boycott if half of us ride the buses and half don’t ride. So if we’re going to do it, let’s make a good job of it.” Graetz's support of the movement also included appearing at meetings led by Martin Luther King Jr. While a few other whites in Montgomery supported the boycott, Graetz was the only white clergyman who did so. He and his family were ostracized by other whites
Robert Graetz
12363830
Inez Jessie Baskin (June 18, 1916 – June 28, 2007) was an American journalist and civil rights supporter who covered the Civil Rights Movement and the Montgomery bus boycott for African American readers and publications. Biography Baskin was born in Florala, Alabama, on June 18, 1916, to Cora Turner and Albert Lorenzo Turner. When Baskin was two years old, she and her parents moved to Montgomery, Alabama. Florala, Alabama became too unsafe to reside in because of the Ku Klux Klan. There, she attended Booker T. Washington High School. She married Wilbur Baskin in the Baptist Church. After positions as a teacher and a typist, she became a journalist and reporter for the "Negro News" section of the Montgomery Adviser newspaper. In 1955, following the arrest of Rosa Parks, Baskin was hired by Jet Magazine and the American Negro Press to cover the Montgomery bus boycott and other, lesser known events that occurred in the black community. Baskin was an active supporter of the bus boycott and the Civil Rights Movement, as well as a reporter of the event. She is most famous for riding one seat in front of Martin Luther King Jr. on a Montgomery bus during the boycott. Baskin was known to support suffrage, having been photographed in a convertible, with a sign that declared her support for Young Alabama Democrats, and said that she was a registered voter. Baskin graduated from what is now Alabama State University with an education degree. She received a degree in divinity from Selma University, and taught classes to ministers in theological schools. She was a licensed social worker and a church pianist. She implemented Montgomery, Alabama's first Head Start program, as well as its first hot-lunch program for low-income children. Towards the end of her life, Baskin was passionate about teaching young children about racism, and influencing them to grow up without hatred. She believed that hatred was taught, and that no one was born with it. She spoke to groups of children across the country about her experience in the Civil Rights Movement. Baskin continued to write until her death, writing her own quarterly newspaper, "The Monitor." Baskin gave a keynote address at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, in 2007. The same year, the university established a scholarship in her name, called the "Willie Mae Goodwine and Inez J. Baskin Scholarship of Journalism". She died in Montgomery, Alabama, of heart failure, on June 28, 2007. References Further reading Rabey, Jennifer (2009). A Woman's Good Works: The Life of Inez Jessie Turner Baskin and Her Fight for Civil and Human Rights in the Cradle of the Confederacy. Thesis, Auburn University. External links Four photographs of Inez Jesse Turner Baskin as a child in Florala, Alabama Inez Baskin Papers Activists for African-American civil rights American civil rights activists 1916 births 2007 deaths Writers from Montgomery, Alabama Journalists from Alabama 20th-century American journalists
Inez Baskin
430598
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civil rights movement. Founding On January 10, 1957, following the Montgomery bus boycott victory against the white establishment and consultations with Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, and others, Martin Luther King Jr. invited about 60 black ministers and leaders to Ebenezer Church in Atlanta. Prior to this, Rustin, in New York City, conceived the idea of initiating such an effort and first sought C. K. Steele to make the call and take the lead role. Steele declined, but told Rustin he would be glad to work right beside him if he sought King in Montgomery for the role. Their goal was to form an organization to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action as a method of desegregating bus systems across the South. In addition to King, Rustin, Baker, and Steele, Fred Shuttlesworth of Birmingham, Joseph Lowery of Mobile, and Ralph Abernathy of Montgomery, all played key roles in this meeting. The group continued this initial meeting on January 11, calling it (in keeping with the recent bus segregation issue) a Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration when they held a press conference that day. The press conference allowed them to introduce their efforts: communicating what they had included in telegrams sent that day to applicable members of the executive branch of the U.S. government (President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, and Attorney General Brownell) sharing an outline of their overall position regarding the restrictions against the "elementary democratic rights [of America's] Negro minority" and providing a short list of concerns they wished to raise with "white Southerners of goodwill". On February 15, a follow-up meeting was held in New Orleans. Out of these two meetings came a new organization with King as its president. Shortening the name used for their January meetings, the group briefly called their organization Negro Leaders Conference on Nonviolent Integration, then Southern Negro Leaders Conference. King served as president, Steele as first vice president, A.L. Davis as second vice president, T. J. Jemison as secretary, Medgar Evers as assistant secretary, Abernathy as treasurer, and Shuttlesworth as historian. At its third meeting, in August 1957, the group settled on Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as its name, expanding its focus beyond buses to ending all forms of segregation. A small office was established in the Prince Hall Masonic Temple Building on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta with Ella Baker as SCLC's first—and for a long time only—staff member. SCLC was governed by an elected board, and established as an organization of affiliates, most of which were either individual churches or community organizations such as the Montgomery Improvement Association and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). This organizational form differed from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) who recruited
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
48046859
The following events occurred in December 1955: December 1, 1955 (Thursday) In Montgomery, Alabama, USA, Rosa Parks refuses to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger and is arrested, leading to the Montgomery bus boycott. December 2, 1955 (Friday) Edgar Faure dissolves France's National Assembly under Article 51 of the country's Constitution. Barnes rail crash: After a collision at Barnes, London, UK, caused by a signal error, fire breaks out. Thirteen people are killed and 35 injured. December 3, 1955 (Saturday) Resistance fighter Osvald Harjo returns to Norway after 13 years in Soviet prison camps. December 4, 1955 (Sunday) The International Federation of Blood Donor Organizations is founded in Luxembourg. December 5, 1955 (Monday) The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge to become the AFL–CIO. The Montgomery Improvement Association is formed in Montgomery, Alabama, by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and other Black ministers to coordinate a Black people's boycott of all city buses. Died: Glenn L. Martin, 69, US aviation pioneer December 6, 1955 (Tuesday) Austria's neutrality is recognised by the USA, Soviet Union, UK and France. The Bensen B-8M autogyro makes its maiden flight. NY psychologist Joyce Brothers won "The $64,000 Question" on boxing Died: Honus Wagner, 81, American baseball player December 7, 1955 (Wednesday) A U.S. Navy Martin P6M SeaMaster airplane explodes over Naval Air Station Patuxent River with the loss of all four crew members. The role of Deputy Premier of Western Australia is formally established by the Government of Western Australia. Clement Attlee resigns as leader of the UK Labour Party after twenty years. December 8, 1955 (Thursday) France's Republican Front coalition is formed by Guy Mollet, Pierre Mendès France, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chaban-Delmas. The Council of Europe adopts a new flag. British conductor Sir Thomas Beecham is presented with the Order of the White Rose of Finland. December 9, 1955 (Friday) Adnan Menderes of the Democrat Party forms the new government of Turkey (22nd government). The UK cargo ship Darton runs aground off Gedser, Denmark, but is refloated. December 10, 1955 (Saturday) In the Australian federal election, the incumbent Liberal Party, led by Prime Minister Robert Menzies with coalition partner the Country Party, led by Arthur Fadden, defeats the Labor Party, led by H. V. Evatt. Future PM Malcolm Fraser enters Parliament for the first time as Liberal member for Wannon. The first Saturday morning cartoon series is shown on U.S. television: The Mighty Mouse Playhouse is broadcast by CBS. December 11, 1955 (Sunday) Operation Olive Leaves, an Israeli reprisal operation against Syria, ends with the destruction of Syrian emplacements, and fifty-four Syrians killed in action, with another thirty taken prisoner. Six IDF fatalities are reported. Italy's Radical Party is founded by a splinter group of the Italian Liberal Party. December 12, 1955 (Monday) The hundred-year-old Cork Opera House at Emmet Place, is destroyed by fire. Christopher Cockerell patents his design of the hovercraft. December
December 1955
900575
Edgar Daniel Nixon (July 12, 1899 – February 25, 1987), known as E. D. Nixon, was an American civil rights leader and union organizer in Alabama who played a crucial role in organizing the landmark Montgomery bus boycott there in 1955. The boycott highlighted the issues of segregation in the South, was upheld for more than a year by black residents, and nearly brought the city-owned bus system to bankruptcy. It ended in December 1956, after the United States Supreme Court ruled in the related case, Browder v. Gayle (1956), that the local and state laws were unconstitutional, and ordered the state to end bus segregation. A longtime organizer and activist, Nixon was president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Montgomery Welfare League, and the Montgomery Voters League. At the time, Nixon already led the Montgomery branch of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union, known as the Pullman Porters Union, which he had helped organize. Martin Luther King Jr. described Nixon as "one of the chief voices of the Negro community in the area of civil rights," and "a symbol of the hopes and aspirations of the long oppressed people of the State of Alabama." Early life and education Edgar D. Nixon was born on July 12, 1899, in rural, majority-black Lowndes County, Alabama to Wesley M. Nixon and Sue Ann Chappell Nixon. As a child, Nixon received 16 months of formal education, as black students were ill-served in the segregated public school system. His mother died when he was young, and he and his seven siblings were reared among extended family in Montgomery. His father was a Baptist minister. After working in a train station baggage room, Nixon rose to become a Pullman car porter, which was a well-respected position with good pay. He was able to travel around the country and worked steadily. He worked with them until 1964. In 1928, he joined the new union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, helping organize its branch in Montgomery. He also served as its president for many years. Marriage and family Nixon married Alease Curry on August 21, 1927 in Montgomery, Alabama. She died in 1934. They had a son, Edgar Daniel Nixon Jr. (1928–2011), who became an actor known by the stage name of Nick LaTour. Nixon later remarried, to Arlet Campbell, in Florida. She was with him during many of the civil rights events. Civil rights activism Years before the Montgomery bus boycott, Nixon had worked for voting rights and civil rights for African Americans in Montgomery. Like other blacks in the state, they had been essentially disenfranchised since the start of the 20th century by changes in the Alabama state constitution and electoral laws. He also served as an unelected advocate for the African-American community, helping individuals negotiate with white officeholders, policemen, and civil servants. In 1943, Nixon and lawyer Arthur Madison founded the Alabama Voters League to encourage African Americans to apply for voter
E. D. Nixon
66224679
Jean Graetz (December 24, 1929 – December 16, 2020), born Jean Ellis, was an American civil rights activist. She and her clergyman husband Robert Graetz were active white supporters of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. Early life and education Jean Ellis was born in East Springfield, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Marshall Ellis and Marian Smith Ellis. Her parents were farmers. She attended Capital University in Bexley, Ohio, but interrupted her studies to marry in 1951. She completed a bachelor's degree in education in 2015, at age 84, at Alabama State University. Activism Graetz moved to Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, because her husband was called to the pulpit of the predominantly-black Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church. As a pastor's wife in the South, she held an unpaid but respected position of community leadership. Within months after arriving, they found themselves drawn into the tumult of Montgomery's civil rights activism. The local chapter of the NAACP used a room in the church for meetings, and their neighbor Rosa Parks was arrested for civil disobedience. The Graetzes joined in planning the Montgomery bus boycott, arranging safe childcare, parking, and meals for protesters, and raising funds for the boycott. An empty plot of land behind the Graetzes’ house was used for parking the cars lent to boycott. She was targeted by those opposed to the boycott, with vandalism, death threats, and at least two bombs detonated in the yard of the parsonage. Rev. Graetz was reassigned to a church in Ohio in 1958. The Graetzes returned to Montgomery in 1965 to join the march from Selma with Martin Luther King Jr. Jean Graetz and her husband remained active for political causes, including their first of several arrests in 2000 for blocking a parking garage during a gay rights protest in Cleveland. The couple retired to Montgomery in 2007, where they were consultants for the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture at Alabama State University. A 2018 auction of a handwritten note by Mrs. Parks discussing her friendship with the Graetz family was bought by the Graetzes themselves for $9,375 and donated to the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture at Alabama State. Personal life Jean married Robert Graetz, a Lutheran minister, in 1951. They had seven children. Robert Graetz died in September 2020, and she died a few months later, from lung cancer, in their Montgomery home, aged 90. References External links Robert Graetz, A White Preacher's Message on Race and Reconciliation: Based on His Experiences Beginning with the Montgomery Bus Boycott (NewSouth Books, 2006); her husband's memoirs. 1929 births 2020 deaths People from Erie County, Pennsylvania Alabama State University alumni Capital University alumni American civil rights activists Activists from Montgomery, Alabama Activists from Pennsylvania Deaths from lung cancer in Alabama
Jean Graetz
3306822
The Rosa Parks Story is a 2002 American television movie written by Paris Qualles and directed by Julie Dash. Angela Bassett portrays Rosa Parks, with Cicely Tyson in a supporting role as her mother. It was broadcast by CBS on February 24, 2002. It received awards from the NAACP and the Black Reel Awards. Background and synopsis The film is an account of the life of Mrs. Rosa Louise McCauley Parks and her actions in the civil rights movement. After she refused to give up her seat for a White man on a racially segregated bus after a long day at work, she was arrested. Her example and treatment prompted a bus boycott as a major civil rights demonstration in Montgomery, Alabama; it lasted 381 days from 1955 to 1956. In the film, Parks's background is highlighted, and the issues in the segregated society of Alabama and the Deep South are indicated. As a child, Rosa was educated at a private school run by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), where she was encouraged to overcome the limits of segregation. In her late-adolescence, she married Raymond Parks, a barber and advocate of equal rights. She joins the local branch of the NAACP, although her husband believes that the organization has been ineffective in its battle against legalized racism. She worked as a seamstress in a department store. On December 1, 1955, after a tiring day at work, Rosa Parks took a seat in the designated "colored" section of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. When the "White" section at the front filled up, the driver, James Blake, ordered Parks to relinquish her seat, as was the practice. She refused, and was arrested and jailed. Civil rights activists organized a one-day bus boycott the day of her trial (she was fined). With its success, they founded the Montgomery Improvement Association, and began a citywide bus boycott, led by a new local minister, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The boycott lasted 381 days, made to work by African-American citizens, many of whom made sacrifices of time and energy to walk to work and other destinations. As they comprised the majority of bus passengers, the boycott greatly reduced the profits the bus company earned. Eventually, the a ruling by the United States Supreme Court, in a related case, declared bus segregation unconstitutional. The boycott was important for mobilizing people in the civil rights movement both in the Deep South and on a nationwide basis across the United States. In 1995, Rosa Parks was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Cast Angela Bassett as Rosa Parks Peter Francis James as Raymond Parks Cicely Tyson as Leona McCauley, Rosa's mother. Dexter Scott King as Martin Luther King Jr. Awards The film was named the Best Television Movie in the NAACP Image Awards. Angela Bassett won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special for her performance. 2003, Black Reel Awards went to Bassett as Best Actress, Cicely Tyson
The Rosa Parks Story
36562843
Thelma Glass (May 16, 1916 – July 24, 2012) was an American civil rights activist, noted for helping to organize the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955, and a professor of geography. Biography Glass was born Thelma McWilliams in Mobile, Alabama, to a hotel cook and homemaker. She graduated from Dunbar High School (Mobile) and attended Alabama State University and Columbia University. In 1955, after Rosa Parks' arrest, Glass and the other members of the Women's Political Council, called for a boycott of the Montgomery bus system, thus beginning the Montgomery bus boycott, a key action in the Civil Rights Movement. Glass had joined the organization in 1947 and in 1955 was its secretary. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. joined in the protests as well and worked with her. She passed out fliers, alerted the community, and urged passengers to walk or car-pool. Soon she noticed every bus that went by was empty of passengers. Although there was sometimes violent retaliation, the boycott continued and eventually the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on buses was unconstitutional and the boycott ended. She married Arthur Glass in 1942, and both taught geography at Alabama State University, where her husband was also a professor. Glass died in 2012 at the age of 96. References Further reading Adam Bernstein, "Thelma Glass, Alabama teacher at the forefront of civil rights activism, dies at 96", Washington Post, July 26, 2012. External links Obituary, Montgomery Advertiser "Remembering Civil Rights Pioneer Thelma Glass", WSFA (news video) 1916 births 2012 deaths 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics American geographers American women civil rights activists Activists for African-American civil rights History of civil rights in the United States Alabama State University faculty Alabama State University alumni Columbia University alumni People from Mobile, Alabama Activists from Alabama 21st-century African-American people
Thelma Glass
1690298
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church is a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama, United States, affiliated with the Progressive National Baptist Convention. The church was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1974 because of its importance in the civil rights movement and American history. In 1978 the official name was changed to the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was pastor there and helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 during the civil rights era. The church is located steps away from the Alabama State Capitol. On January 1, 2008, the US Government submitted the church to UNESCO as part of an envisaged future World Heritage Site nomination, because of this important history. It is on the UNESCO "Tentative List of World Heritage Sites". History The Dexter Avenue Baptist Church congregation was organized in 1877 by freedmen and free people of color. It was first known as the Second Colored Baptist Church. The church trustees paid $270 on January 30, 1879, for a lot at the corner of what is now Dexter Avenue and Decatur Street. The first church building was a small wood-frame building. The congregation began construction of a new building in 1883; the brick building was not completed until 1889. The church began serving the broader African American community on October 3, 1887, when it hosted the first registration of students for Alabama State University, a historically black college. In 1899, William H. McAlpine became pastor; he was a cofounder of Selma University. Vernon Johns, an early leader of the Civil Rights Movement, served as pastor from 1947 to 1952. He was succeeded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was pastor of the church from 1954 to 1960. He organized the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott from his basement office. Near the church is the former Dexter Parsonage, which served as home to twelve pastors of the church between 1920 and 1992. It is now operated as the Dexter Parsonage Museum, interpreting church history. The church was added, on its own merits, to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Behind the church is the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Legacy Center, on 455 Washington Avenue. The courtyard has a statue of Dr. King. Gallery See also List of National Historic Landmarks in Alabama List of Baptist churches in Alabama References External links Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church National Register of Historic Places in Montgomery, Alabama National Historic Landmarks in Alabama Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama Religious organizations established in 1877 Baptist churches in Alabama Churches in Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery bus boycott African-American history in Montgomery, Alabama Gothic Revival church buildings in Alabama Italianate architecture in Alabama Civil rights movement museums 1877 establishments in Alabama Italianate church buildings in the United States
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
68105513
Johnnie Anderson Jones Sr. (November 30, 1919 – April 23, 2022) was an American politician, soldier, and civil rights attorney associated with the 1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott, the first anti-segregation bus boycott, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This was a precursor to the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama. Jones was the second African American U.S. Army warrant officer. In 2021, he received a Purple Heart, 77 years after he was injured by shrapnel during Operation Overlord, the D-Day invasion of Omaha Beach in World War II. Jones served as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1972 to 1976. Early life Johnnie Anderson Jones was born November 30, 1919, in Laurel Hill, Louisiana, in West Feliciana Parish, three miles south of the Mississippi line near Woodville, Mississippi. One of eight children, he was the son of lease cropping farmers Henry E. Jones (born December 5, 1876) and Sarah Ann Coats (also spelled Costes), and the paternal great-grandson of Emily Bowers, a formerly enslaved mixed-race African American passing as white. Jones attended elementary school up to the sixth grade at West Feliciana Parish school board system. Jones' parents were considered one of the most successful African American farmers in the area. Jones attended high school at the Southern University Demonstration School (now known as Southern Lab). Prior to joining the military, he attended Southern University. Military career While attending Southern University, Jones was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943. He was assigned to the 494th Port Battalion, an all-African American port battalion attached to the 6th Engineer Special Brigade that took part in Operation Overlord leading to the invasion of Normandy, France, (D-Day) at Omaha Beach. Jones served as a warrant officer responsible for leading a unit unloading equipment and supplies onto Omaha Beach. Jones was the first African American warrant officer (Junior Grade) in the U.S. Army. Jones landed on Omaha Beach in the third wave of the Normandy invasion on D Day, June 7, 1944. He was injured on Omaha Beach, sustaining a back injury from his ship hitting a mine, and receiving shrapnel wounds to the neck from German air attacks and German sniper rounds. Around 2,000 African-American troops took part in the Normandy invasion in several different roles. Jones continued to serve during World War II, fighting in the Northern France campaign on the Western Front at the Battle of the Bulge, the largest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army and a major factor in bringing about the end of WWII. On June 26, 2021, the U.S. Army awarded Jones a Purple Heart, 77 years after he was injured by shrapnel injuries during the D-Day invasion of Omaha Beach during World War II. The ceremony, held at the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge, was attended by various dignitaries including retired Lt. General Russel L. Honore, Joey Strickland, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs, and U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy who pinned the Purple
Johnnie Jones (lawyer)
48405631
The Baton Rouge bus boycott was a boycott of city buses launched on June 19, 1953, by African-American residents of Baton Rouge, Louisiana who were seeking integration of the system. They made up about 80% of the ridership of the city buses in the early 1950s but, under Jim Crow rules, black people were forced to sit in the back of the bus, even when the front of the bus was empty. State laws prohibited black citizens from owning private buses outside the city systems. Background Activists proposed to the city that black riders would be allowed to ride in the front of the bus, but voluntarily refrain from sitting next to whites. The City Council initially approved this concept and passed Ordinance 222. But the cadre of all-white bus drivers refused to enforce the ordinance, and they went on strike. The ordinance was overturned after the strike went on four days. The drivers returned to work after the Louisiana Attorney General overturned the ordinance and declared victory. Rev. T. J. Jemison helped organize the United Defense League and a bus boycott after the integration ordinance was overturned. Black residents met in four mass meetings and raised $6,000 for the boycott in just two days. About 14 residents refused to board the city's buses and instead accepted rides in free taxis set up by the community and in private car pools. About 25 private cars were used to transport people while the boycott was in force. After six days, the boycott ended when the city passed Ordinance 251. It directed that black riders would fill the bus from the rear forward and whites from the front toward the back. Blacks and whites were prohibited from sitting next to each other in the same row. Two front seats were declared off-limits to black riders, and only black riders could occupy the wide rear seat that spanned the back of the bus. The boycott had a very small impact on the city's transportation system and on the broader civil rights movement. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. became aware of the bus boycott and spoke with Rev. Jemison about the fight for social justice in Baton Rouge. He especially wanted to discuss the free car ride system, which was a key part of enforcing the Baton Rouge bus boycott. The 1953 Baton Rouge Bus boycott served as a model for the internationally known 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. The 1953 Baton Rouge Bus boycott also inspired residents to mobilize around other issues, such as securing the right to vote. In recognition of the importance of the 1953 Baton Rouge Bus Boycott in African-American history and world history, the Toni Morrison Society's "Bench by the Road" project selected Baton Rouge as a site to memorialize. The project places benches at sites with historical significance for people of African ancestry. The permanent site of the bench commemorating the bus boycott is the McKinley High School Alumni Center. Further reading Beauchamp, M. (2008). Baton Rouge Bus Boycott.
Baton Rouge bus boycott
46904142
Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story is a 16-page comic book about Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and the Montgomery bus boycott published in 1957 by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR USA). It advocates the principles of nonviolence and provides a primer on nonviolent resistance. Although ignored by the mainstream comics industry, The Montgomery Story, written by Alfred Hassler and Benton Resnik and illustrated by Sy Barry, was widely distributed among civil rights groups, churches, and schools. It helped inspire nonviolent protest movements around the Southern United States, and later in Latin America, South Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Over 50 years after its initial publication, the comic inspired the best-selling, award-winning March trilogy by Georgia Congressman John Lewis. Publication history Following the success of the Montgomery bus boycott, which FOR USA had helped organize, executive secretary and director of publications Alfred Hassler, and FoR member the Rev. Glenn E. Smiley came up with the idea of using a comic book to bring the story of the bus boycott to a wide audience. (Smiley had been personally active in the bus boycott, and had formed a friendship with Dr. King.) Presenting the comic idea as a way to reach wider audiences (including those with lower reading levels), the group acquired grant funding of $5,000 for the project from the Fund for the Republic. Dr, King himself endorsed the book and even provided a few editorial suggestions. Cartoonist Al Capp was an admirer of Dr. King; his studio produced Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story at no charge, which was co-written by Hassler and Benton Resnik, and drawn by an uncredited artist. (Benton Resnik had been an editor and writer for the Al Capp-owned comics companies Toby Press and Graphic Information Services.) The artist has since been confirmed to be Sy Barry by artist James Romberger. It was published in December 1957 in full-color with a cover price of 10 cents. 250,000 copies were printed. Instead of the typical distribution network for comics in those days, which were newsstands, pharmacies, and candy stores, The Montgomery Story was distributed by the Fellowship of Reconciliation among civil rights groups, churches, and schools. It was also promoted in pro-Civil Rights publications such as National Guardian and Peace News. FoR staff members, particularly Jim Lawson (an African American divinity student at Vanderbilt University) and Glenn Smiley, traveled through the South, giving workshops on nonviolence. They would distribute the comic to younger attendees as something to take with them and study. At some point not long after its original publication, FoR produced a Spanish version of the comic for distribution throughout Latin America. Instead of using the same art as the English edition, the Spanish version is a complete copy of the original, drawn by a different artist. 125,000 copies were printed, but only a handful of copies of the Spanish version still exist. Revival In 2004 comic book artist, writer and historian Tom Christopher researched the King comic and posted an
Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story
5331208
Burton Silverman is an American artist. Education Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1928, Silverman received a BA from Columbia College and studied at the Art Students League and the Pratt Institute. Now entering his sixth decade as an artist, Silverman has also taught at the School of Visual Arts, the Art Students League, the National Academy School of Fine Arts, the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and Brigham Young University's College of Fine Arts. Silverman was also the Smith Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Career Silverman's work has been included in retrospectives at the Butler Institute of American Art, the Brigham Young Museum of Art, the Sherwin Miller Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts University, and the Hofstra University Museum. His art has been featured at in group exhibits at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the Delaware Art Museum, and the Arnot Art Museum. Public collections which host Silverman paintings includes, but is not limited to: the Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Butler Institute of American Art, the Denver Art Museum, The Georgia Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The New Britain Museum, the Mint Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Delaware Art Museum, the Columbus Museum, the Arkansas Art Center, the Seven Bridges Foundation in Connecticut, and the Smith Museum of Auburn University also host Silverman paintings. Recently, Silverman has had solo exhibitions at Gallery Henoch in New York City and at the Haynes Galleries in Nashville, Tennassee. Commissioned portraits painted by Silverman have included notable jurists, medical doctors, and educators, from clients such as the University of Chicago, Yale University, Harvard University, Princeton University, and Weill Cornell Medical Center. Montgomery bus boycott In 1956, Silverman traveled with fellow artist Harvey Dinnerstein to Montgomery, Alabama, to document the profound social changes taking place after Black activists refused to ride the city's then segregated buses. During their visit, Dinnerstein and Silverman created more than 90 drawings ranging from courtroom scenes to church meetings to portraits of those who chose, according to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to "walk with dignity rather than ride in humiliation". The drawings they created there were a dramatic reconstruction of this turning point in American culture. The drawings appeared in various solo exhibitions of Silverman's and Dinnerstein's artwork, but as a whole, the entire collection was first shown in 2005 at the Delaware Art Museum and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art in 2006 an exhibition tilted: "In Glorious Dignity: Drawings of the Montgomery Bus Boycott". As described in the exhibition catalogue, "They traveled to document through their drawings ordinary people engaged in a mighty endeavor, a demonstration of civil disobedience which came to be known as the Montgomery bus boycott. Soon what began as a local phenomenon received widespread national and international attention, serving as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement." According to Silverman and Dinnerstein, the boycott was "a struggle that went beyond
Burton Silverman
24904442
The First Baptist Church (also known as the Brick-A-Day Church) on North Ripley Street in Montgomery, Alabama, is a historic landmark. Founded in downtown Montgomery in 1867 as one of the first black churches in the area, it provided an alternative to the second-class treatment and discrimination African-Americans faced at the other First Baptist Church in the city. In the first few decades after its establishment the First Baptist Church became one of the largest black churches in the South, growing from hundreds of parishioners to thousands. Almost a hundred years later, in the 1950s and 1960s, it was an important gathering place for activities related to the Civil Rights Movement, and became associated with Ralph Abernathy, the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott, and the Freedom Rides of May 1961. The church was listed by the Alabama Historical Commission on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on May 5, 2000. History The congregation first organized in 1866; early parishioners had worshiped during slavery at the other First Baptist Church in Montgomery, on Perry Street. Before the American Civil War, blacks were allowed only on the balcony of that church: "they were never allowed on the main floor of the sanctuary unless they were sweeping or mopping." In 1867, 700 African-American communicants had marched to an empty lot on the corner of Ripley Street and Columbus Street, declaring themselves the "First Baptist Church (Colored)" and founding what became "the first 'free Negro' institution in the city." The wooden building itself, which faced north to Columbus Street, was called the Columbus Street Baptist Church. The first pastor was Nathan Ashby, who also became the first president of the Colored Baptist Convention in Alabama, founded in his church on December 17, 1868. Ashby retired in 1870, after being struck by paralysis. He was followed, briefly, by J.W. Stevens, and starting in 1871, James H. Foster was the pastor for twenty years. Foster is credited with increasing membership from a few hundred to several thousand; his successor, pastor Andrew Stokes, added even more. Fire destroyed the first frame church. Between 1910 and 1915, the church was rebuilt (now facing east, toward Ripley Street) under the leadership of pastor Stokes. Members of the congregation were asked to each bring a brick a day to build it—hence the church's nickname, the "Brick-A-Day Church." The building was designed in the style of the Romanesque Revival by W.T. Bailey of the Tuskegee University. Civil Rights Movement From 1952 to 1961, the church was led by civil rights activist Ralph Abernathy, a good friend of Martin Luther King Jr., who preached a few blocks away, at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, from 1954 to 1960. During the Montgomery bus boycott (1955–1956), it was the location of mass meetings; Abernathy was a confidante of Edgar Nixon and quickly became involved with the boycott. After the boycott was over, and the buses in Montgomery were desegregated, occasionally buses would get ambushed and shot at. One such shooting, on January 10, 1957,
First Baptist Church (Montgomery, Alabama)
4324975
"Mother" Pollard (c. 1882–1885 – before 1963) was an American church elder who participated in the 1955–1956 Montgomery bus boycott. She has been called a civil rights hero for her tenacity in soothing the spirit of her pastor, Martin Luther King Jr. Pollard was an elder of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, during the time of the bus boycott. It was a seminal event in the civil rights movement that produced a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system in Montgomery. King recounted in his writings that after several weeks of walking to her destinations rather than take the bus, he suggested to Mother Pollard, then about 72, that she might take the bus again for the sake of her health. She replied, "My feets is tired, but my soul is rested." She was dubbed "Mother" because of her age; her real first name is unknown. References 1880s births Date of birth missing Place of birth missing Year of death missing 20th-century deaths Place of death missing American civil rights activists
Mother Pollard
147393
Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin; September 5, 1939) is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. It occurred nine months before the similar, more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. 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 the 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. The court subsequently declared all segregation on public transportation unconstitutional. For many years, Montgomery's black leaders did not publicize Colvin's pioneering effort. She has said, "Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn't the case at all." Colvin's case was dropped by civil rights campaigners because she was unmarried and pregnant during the proceedings. It is now widely accepted that she was not accredited by civil rights campaigners due to her circumstances. Rosa Parks said: "If the white press got ahold of that information, they would have [had] a field day. They'd call her a bad girl, and her case wouldn't have a chance." The record of Colvin's arrest and adjudication of delinquency was expunged by the district court in 2021, with the support of the district attorney for the county where the charges were brought more than 66 years earlier. Early life Claudette Colvin was born Claudette Austin in Montgomery, Alabama, on September 5, 1939, to Mary Jane Gadson and C. P. Austin. When Austin abandoned the family, Gadson was unable to financially support her children. Colvin and her younger sister, Delphine, were taken in by their great aunt and uncle, Mary Anne and Q. P. Colvin, whose daughter, Velma, had already moved out. Colvin and her sister referred to the Colvins as their parents and took their last name. When they took Claudette in, the Colvins lived in Pine Level, a small country town in Montgomery County, the same town where Rosa Parks grew up. When Colvin was eight years old, the Colvins moved to King Hill, a poor black neighborhood in Montgomery where she spent the rest of her childhood. Two
Claudette Colvin
15923476
Johnnie Rebecca Daniels Carr (January 26, 1911 – February 22, 2008) was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from 1955 until her death. Personal life Carr was born on January 26, 1911, to parents John and Annie Richmond Daniels as the youngest of six children. When she was nine, Carr’s father died; following his death, the family, now guided by a single mother, moved away from their farm to the nearby city of Montgomery, Alabama. The family sought better educational opportunities than the six-month school year in their previous rural residence, and Carr attended two private schools: the Bredding School and Alice L. White’s Industrial School for Girls, also known as the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls. At the Industrial School, which Carr claims was “started by whites from the north," young Carr met and befriended young Rosa Louise McCauley, who eventually grew up to be civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Before her graduation from high school, Carr married Jack Jordan when she was sixteen to lessen her mother’s burden of being the sole caretaker of the family. The couple had two daughters. After breaking off the marriage, Carr became a practicing nurse and then an insurance agent while her mother cared for her children. In February 1944, Carr remarried to Arlam Carr. The previous year, in 1943, the Carrs moved into their home across from Oak Park, a park separating black and white neighborhoods in Montgomery. Carr gave birth to their only child, Arlam Jr., in 1951. Early Civil Rights Career Carr began her civil rights work as early as 1931, when she raised money during the Scottsboro trials for the defense of the nine wrongly accused boys. In the late 1930s, after attending an event at Hall Baptist Church, Carr joined her local chapter of the NAACP. She began working as a youth director and secretary under E.D. Nixon, the president of the chapter at the time. In addition to working with E.D. Nixon, Carr once again met her childhood friend Rosa Parks, who she had not seen since 1927. In 1944, Carr, along with her husband Arlam Carr, Rosa Parks, Raymond Parks, E.D. Nixon, E. G. Jackson, and Irene West, organized to defend Recy Taylor, a woman who was gang raped by six white men after attending a church service at Rock Hill Holiness Church in Abbeville, Alabama. This core of activists, who canvassed neighborhoods, raised money, and sent petitions and postcards to the governor and attorney general of Alabama, later became part of the movement that supported Martin Luther King Jr. Taylor’s attackers were not indicted. The Montgomery Bus Boycott On December 1, 1955, Carr received a call from Nixon, who told her, “They’ve arrested Rosa. They got ‘the wrong woman.’” This was the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and Carr attended the formative mass meeting on December 5, 1955 (the same day as Rosa Parks’ trial) in Holt Street Baptist Church. This mass meeting precipitated the creation of the
Johnnie Carr
41698302
Boycott is a 2001 American made-for-television biographical drama film directed by Clark Johnson, and starring Jeffrey Wright as Martin Luther King Jr. The film, based on the book Daybreak of Freedom by Stewart Burns, tells the story of the 1955–1956 Montgomery bus boycott. It won a Peabody Award in 2001 "for refusing to allow history to slip into 'the past.'" Cast Jeffrey Wright as Martin Luther King Jr. Terrence Howard as Ralph Abernathy CCH Pounder as Jo Ann Robinson Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King Reg E. Cathey as E. D. Nixon Brent Jennings as Rufus Lewis Iris Little Thomas as Rosa Parks Shawn Michael Howard as Fred Gray Erik Dellums as Bayard Rustin Soundtrack The film soundtrack was issued as a 3-disc CD album on the EMI Gospel label and features recordings by Nat King Cole, Dizzy Gillespie, Kirk Franklin and The Nu Nation, Montrel Darrett, Darwin T. Hobbs & Molly Johnson, Beverly Crawford and The Potters House Choir, the Tri-City Singers, Aaron Neville with Sweet Honey in the Rock, Lamar Campbell and The Spirit of Praise, Karen Clark, and BeBe Winans with Stevie Wonder & Mario Winans. Reviewing the album for AllMusic, Jonathan Widran said: "This exciting, eclectic R&B-driven soundtrack to the HBO film features a mix of classic jazz performances and some of the best sounds coming out of modern pop-gospel music these days." See also Browder v. Gayle Civil rights movement in popular culture Claudette Colvin Selma, another film starring Ejogo as Scott King References External links Boycott at Rotten Tomatoes 2001 television films HBO Films films 2001 biographical drama films Films about Martin Luther King Jr. Films about buses African-American biographical dramas Civil rights movement in television Montgomery bus boycott Cultural depictions of Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural depictions of Rosa Parks Films directed by Clark Johnson 2001 films American drama television films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films
Boycott (2001 film)
18910374
Lawrence Dunbar Reddick (March 3, 1910 – August 2, 1995) was an African-American historian and professor who wrote the first biography of Martin Luther King Jr., strengthened major archives of African-American history resources at Atlanta University Center and the New York Public Library, and was fired by Alabama's state board of education for his support for student sit-ins at Alabama State College—an event that earned him honor for his courage and brought Alabama State College censure by the American Association of University Professors. Life and career Born March 3, 1910, in Jacksonville, Florida, Reddick earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in history from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, completing his work there in 1933. In 1939, he married Ella Ruth Thomas and received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago, where he wrote his dissertation on The Negro in the New Orleans Press, 1850-1860. During the years he was working on his Ph.D., he directed a Works Project Administration collection of interviews of former slaves in Kentucky and Indiana; that 1934 project was based at Kentucky State College in Frankfort. He joined the faculty of Dillard University in New Orleans in 1936. An early advocate of research on the history of all persons of African ancestry world-wide, Reddick had an opportunity to further that vision as curator of the Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature at the New York Public Library from 1939 to 1948. He then took a position as head of the library at Atlanta University Center, a consortium of Atlanta colleges. In 1956, he became chair of the history department at Alabama State College in Montgomery. Montgomery bus boycott and M. L. King, Jr Reddick began writing for [[Dissent (American magazine)|Dissent]] about the civil rights struggle, the students sit-ins, and the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycott. He then was requested to work with Dr. King on his book about the successfully completed boycott, Stride Toward Freedom (1958). Later Reddick finished his own biography of King, Crusader without Violence (1959). In 1960 the state board of education ordered Alabama State College president H. Councill Trenholm to fire Reddick as part of the board's retaliation against students and professors involved in sit-ins. For his courage and contributions to the movement, Reddick was awarded the Silver Jubilee Award by the New York City Teachers Union. The American Association of University Professors censured the Alabama college for firing him without due process; the censure lasted for twenty years. Reddick subsequently held teaching positions at Coppin State Teachers' College in Baltimore (1960–67), Temple (1967–76), Harvard (1977–78), and Dillard (1978-87). He wrote Worth Fighting for: a History of the Negro in the United States during the Civil War and Reconstruction (with Agnes McCarthy, 1965) and Blacks and U.S. Wars (1976). He became well-respected as a historian and a university professor and was a contributor to educational and political journals. He had expertise in media criticism, especially the effect of radio, movies, and popular culture on public perceptions of Negroes. He died on 2
Lawrence D. Reddick
20187365
Dana King (born March 7, 1960) is an American broadcast journalist and sculptor. She served as an anchor for the CBS owned-and-operated station KPIX-TV in San Francisco. In 2012, King left KPIX to pursue her passion in sculpting and art. Her outdoor sculpture commemorating the Montgomery bus boycott is displayed at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. King uses historically generalized and racist ideas that require in-depth researches, to provide information on the normative misrepresentation of Black peoples' emotional and physical sacrifices. Journalism career King won her second of five local Emmy Awards for her reporting in Honduras in 1998 and 2000, reporting on the consequences of Hurricane Mitch. King also won an RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award in March 2005 for her reporting on the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. She won another Murrow Award in 2009 for a series called "Assignment Africa." She is also known for her coverage of the conflict in Afghanistan, and the September 11 Attacks. In 1993, King co-anchored the debut of ABC's Good Morning America Sunday, before moving to CBS's CBS Morning News (1994–95) and other CBS News programs, including the short-lived syndicated newsmagazine Day and Date. Art career King announced her departure as a news anchor for CBS San Francisco on December 7, 2012. Although this departure allowed King more free time to pursue her art career, she initially began her career while simultaneously working as a news anchor for KPIX-TV (CBS 5). In the time following her departure, King planned to pursue her passion for art and sculpting. King regarded sculpting to be her "third career," explaining art and sculpture to be her passion and true calling. King's art includes the mediums of sculpture, charcoal drawing, and oil painting. Furthermore, King explains her departure from journalism, saying, "I'm still a journalist, but now my medium is clay." Throughout her art career, King is known for her sculptures and community projects that revolve around the goal of portraying a political message. One of King's best known sculptures is her outdoor sculpture dedicated to the memory of the women who led and sustained the Montgomery bus boycott. This sculpture is on display at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice that opened in 2018 in Montgomery, Alabama. This sculpture depicts a teacher, grandma, and pregnant woman who are standing in a triangular formation. Furthermore, King utilized her knowledge gained through journalism to portray these women as if they were from 1950s Alabama. This sculpture of women, according to King, was meant to portray how the women involved were "quiet activists" who were silently making a difference although faced with discrimination. She was recognized as one of "10 Emerging Black Female Artists To Collect" by Black Art in America. King is also an entrepreneur and the owner of a thriving artists’ enclave located in Oakland, California. King prefers sculptures because they inhabit space and according to her space is power. She believes sculpture provides an opportunity to shape culturally
Dana King
43504335
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Montgomery, Alabama, USA. 19th century 1819 - Montgomery incorporated. 1821 Montgomery Republican newspaper begins publication. Franklin Society founded. 1824 - Presbyterian church and Montgomery Light Infantry established. 1828 - Alabama State Library headquartered in Montgomery. 1833 - Montgomery Advertiser newspaper in publication. 1847 - Sons of Temperance formed. 1850 - Lehman Brothers in business. 1851 - Alabama State Capitol built. 1861 February: Montgomery becomes capital of the Confederate States of America; First White House of the Confederacy established; Jefferson Davis sworn in as president. May 21: Confederate capitol relocated from Montgomery to Richmond, Virginia. 1864 - Atlanta-Montgomery railroad destroyed by Union forces. 1867 - Swayne School built. 1870 - Population: 10,588. 1873 - Chamber of Commerce established. 1877 - Second Colored Baptist Church established. 1887 - Normal School for Colored Students opens. 1889 - Hale Infirmary founded. 1898 - Confederate monument dedicated. 1899 - Montgomery Library Association organized. 1900 - Population: 30,346. 20th century 1901 - Alabama Department of Archives and History headquartered in Montgomery. 1902 - St. Margaret's Hospital founded. 1907 - Bell Building constructed. 1910 Wright Flying School begins operating. William Gunter becomes mayor. 1913 - Rotary Club of Montgomery organized. 1914 - Empire Theater built. 1916 - Commission form of government adopted. 1926 Junior League of Montgomery organized. Scottish Rite Temple constructed. 1927 - Jefferson Davis Hotel built. 1929 Municipal airport begins operating. State Teachers College active. 1930 WSFA radio begins broadcasting. Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts established. 1938 Coca-Cola bottling facility in operation. WCOV radio begins broadcasting. 1940 Population: 78,084. Veterans hospital begins operating. 1941 - Mayor William Gunter dies. 1942 - Montgomery Bible College founded. 1946 — A devastating and deadly tornado struck the western portion of the city. The tornado killed 26 people, injured 293 others, and caused a city-wide blackout which lasted for hours. 1947 - Alabama Historical Association headquartered in city. 1948 - U.S. Maxwell Air Force Base established. 1949 - City of Montgomery Library established. 1950 - Population: 106,525. 1953 - WCOV-TV (television) begins broadcasting. 1954 - WSFA television begins broadcasting. 1955 - December 1: Rosa Parks arrested; Montgomery bus boycott begins. 1956 - December 20: Racial segregation lawsuit Browder v. Gayle verdict takes effect; bus boycott ends. 1960 - Population: 134,393. 1961 - May 20: Freedom Riders attacked. 1964 - WKAB-TV begins broadcasting. 1965 March 7–25: Selma to Montgomery marches for voting rights. March 25: Martin Luther King Jr. delivers "How Long, Not Long" speech. 1967 February 7: Dale's Penthouse fire. Auburn University at Montgomery established. Alabama Historical Commission headquartered in city. 1968 - Landmarks Foundation of Montgomery established. 1971 - Southern Poverty Law Center founded. 1972 - Montgomery Zoo opens. 1977 Wynnsong 10 cinema in business. Emory Folmar becomes mayor. 1978 - Montgomery Genealogical Society established. 1980 - Population: 177,857. 1984 - Masjid Qasim Bilal El-Amin established. 1985 - Alabama Shakespeare Festival active. 1986 - Montgomery Area Food Bank established. 1989 - Civil Rights Memorial dedicated. 1990
Timeline of Montgomery, Alabama
22195431
Paul Stephenson OBE (born 6 May 1937) is a community worker, activist and long-time campaigner for civil rights for the British African-Caribbean community in Bristol, England. As a young social worker, in 1963 Stephenson led a boycott of the Bristol Omnibus Company, protesting against its refusal to employ Black or Asian drivers or conductors. After a 60-day boycott supported by thousands of Bristolians, the company revoked its colour bar in August. In 1964 Stephenson achieved national fame when he refused to leave a public house until he was served, resulting in a trial on a charge of failing to leave a licensed premises. His campaigns were instrumental in paving the way for the first Race Relations Act, in 1965. Stephenson is a Freeman of the City of Bristol and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2009. Early life Stephenson was born in Rochford, Essex, in 1937 to a West African father and a British mother. His maternal grandmother Edie Johnson was a well known actress in the 1920s. At age 3 he was evacuated to a care home in Great Dunmow, Essex, where he stayed for seven years. He received his secondary education at Forest Gate Secondary School in London, where he was the only black child in the school. Service in the Royal Air Force followed from 1953 to 1960. Stephenson gained a Diploma in Youth and Community Work from Westhill College of Education, Birmingham, in 1962 and then moved to Bristol to work as a youth officer for Bristol City Council, becoming the city's first black social worker. Bus boycott In January 1955 the Passenger group, that is the section representing those working in Passenger Transport, of the local branch of the Transport and General Workers Union had passed a resolution that "coloured workers should not be employed as bus crews" by the Bristol Omnibus Company. The Bristol Evening Post ran a series of articles in 1961 exposing this colour bar. The union publicly denied the bar, but the company general manager, Ian Patey, did admit it. He attempted to justify the company policy by stating in a meeting with the city's Joint Transport Committee that he "had 'factual evidence' that the introduction of coloured crews in other cities downgraded the job, causing existing (white) staff to go elsewhere." Several members of the city's West Indian community set up an organisation, the West Indian Development Council, to fight discrimination of this sort, aided by Stephenson, who was the city's first black youth officer. In 1963 Stephenson established that the bus company was indeed operating a colour bar and inspired by the example of Rosa Parks' refusal to move off a "whites only" bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, leading to the Montgomery bus boycott, a Bristol Bus Boycott was organised. As an articulate and university educated person, Stephenson became spokesman for the boycott, which soon attracted nationwide media interest and the campaign grew to receive support from Bristolians of all colours, Tony
Paul Stephenson (civil rights campaigner)
4752738
The Women's Political Council (WPC), founded in Montgomery, Alabama, was an organization that formed in 1946 that was an early force active in the civil rights movement that was formed to address the racial issues in the city. Members included Mary Fair Burks, Jo Ann Robinson, Maude Ballou, Irene West, Thelma Glass, and Euretta Adair. The WPC was the first group to officially call for a boycott of the bus system during the Montgomery bus boycott, beginning in December 1955. The group led efforts in the early 1950s to secure better treatment for Black bus passengers, and in December 1955 it initiated the thirteen-month bus boycott. They helped organize communications to get it started, as well as to support it, including giving people rides who were boycotting the buses. The African Americans of Montgomery upheld the boycott for more than a year. It ended in late December 1956, after the United States Supreme Court ruled in Browder v. Gayle that the state and local laws for bus segregation were unconstitutional, and ordered the state to desegregate public transportation. Origins The WPC formed in 1946 as a civic organization for African-American professional women in the city of Montgomery, Alabama. It was organized by Mary Fair Burks, the chairperson of the English department at Alabama State College, and 40 other women. The WPC was a political organization composed of Alabama State College faculty members and the wives of black professional men throughout the city. It was inspired by the Atlanta Neighborhood Union. Many of its middle-class women were active in education; most of WPC's members were educators at Alabama State College or Montgomery's public schools. The organization targeted Montgomery's small population of black middle class women, encouraging their civic involvement and promoting voter registration. About forty women attended the first organizational meeting. Burks was the group's first president. Burks decided to form the organization after she was arrested after a traffic dispute with a white woman. The group's initial purposes were to foster women's involvement in civic affairs, to promote voter registration through citizenship education, and to aid women who were victims of rape or assault. Many African Americans were illiterate due to centuries of oppression and poverty; they would sometimes fail the literacy test they were forced to take in order to vote. Other times, they were told they had come to the wrong location for registration or come on the wrong date. One goal of the WPC was to teach adults to read and write well enough to fulfill the literacy requirements for voting. One of its most successful programs was an annual event called Youth City, which taught Black high school students about politics and government and "what democracy could and should mean". During election campaigns the WPC worked with the white-only League of Women Voters to inform Black citizens about political candidates. In 1949, Jo Ann Robinson, a newly hired English professor at Alabama State College, joined the council. Her firsthand experiences with segregated seating on buses prompted
Women's Political Council
55083665
On 18 July 1983, Mdantsane and East London communities embarked on a bus boycott to protest an unannounced five cent increase in bus fares. The residents abandoned the partly Ciskei government-owned Ciskei Transport Corporation (CTC) buses for taxis and trains. On 4 August 1983, the Ciskei police tried to prevent residents from taking the train at Egerton train station in Mdantsane. After hesitating, the crowd advanced a few paces. However, as the police drew their guns, the people stopped. Without warning, the police fired into the crowd killing 11 and injuring 36 commuters, leading to what is now known as the Egerton railway station bus boycott massacre, the Mdantsane bus boycott massacre, the Egerton massacre, and similar terms. Background The Egerton massacre occurred in the then Ciskei township of Mdantsane outside East London. An attitude survey run by the white apartheid South African government conducted in Mdantsane in July 1981 found that 70% of all the working class respondents identified transport as their most serious problem. 80% of Mdantsane's workers used buses to go to work while 15% used the trains and 5% went to work by car. The bus company, which catered for commuters travelling between East London and Mdantsane, was Ciskei Transport Corporation (CTC). The company was co-owned by the Ciskei State and the Economic Development Corporation. In 1980, the South African Allied Workers Union (SAAWU) held meetings around Mdantsane to hear workers' grievances around transport services. SAAWU drew up four demands from the workers in Mdantsane: 1) The provision of bus shelters 2) The provision of tickets that could only be invalidated by the ticket clippers 3) Students and pensioners should pay half price 4) Cushions should be put on the cold wooden benches. These demands were ignored by the Ciskei Transport Corporation. This increased tension between the bus company and commuters. Bus boycott On 13 July 1983, the Ciskei Transport Corporation introduced an 11% (50 cent) bus fare increase on the route between East London and Mdantsane. The issue had been discussed amongst the organised workers and members of the political organisations in the preceding weeks. A meeting with 1000 people was held in a church hall in Duncan Village on 10 July 1983. A committee of ten workers known as the "Committee of Ten" was elected to represent the community's interests to the CTC. The Committee of Ten tried to meet CTC management on Monday 11 July. The CTC refused on the grounds that they had already talked to community leaders two months before the increases were announced. A second mass meeting was held on 12 July in Duncan Village. About 3000 people attended. The CTC responses were unanimously rejected and a decision was taken to boycott the buses. On 18 July, the bus boycott began. The commuters initially walked to work in large groups, from Mdantsane across the Ciskei border to East London, a distance of about twenty kilometres. On its second day, the boycott attracted over 80% of the bus commuters. The number
Egerton railway station bus boycott massacre
4771992
Mary Fair Burks (July 31, 1914 – July 21, 1991) was an American educator, scholar, and activist during the Civil Rights Movement from Montgomery, Alabama. Burks founded the Women’s Political Council in 1946, which helped initiate the Montgomery Bus Boycott following the arrest of Rosa Parks in 1955. Biography Burks was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on July 31, 1914, the daughter of Gustavus "Gus" Samuel and Ollie (née Williams) Fair. She attended Alabama State University and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in English literature in 1933, and Michigan State University, where she earned a Master of Arts degree in the same field in 1934. Burks then went back to Montgomery to teach English at Alabama State Laboratory High School. The school’s principal, Nathaniel W. Burks, was a former professor of hers, and the two eventually married and had a child together. Their son, also named Nathaniel W. Burks, became a physician. She was head of the English department at Alabama State College in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Burks continued her own schooling as well by earning her doctorate in education from Columbia University, and she completed further postgraduate studies at universities such as Harvard and Oxford. In 1960, Burks resigned from Alabama State College after several professors were fired for their involvement in civil rights issues. Among the other 16 faculty members fired from the college was Jo Ann Robinson, a fellow member of the Women's Political Council that Burks worked closely with leading up to and during the Civil Rights Movement. Following the end of the movement, Burks moved to Salisbury, Maryland. Burks was an active member of her community there, where she founded two African American historical societies, worked with the volunteer program of a local hospital, and became a member of the Maryland Arts Council. She was appointed to a National Endowment for the Humanities reviewing panel in 1979, and she also taught literature at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore until her retirement in 1986. Burks died on July 21, 1991. Published works Burks published numerous literary works, including a review of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk as well as articles on Toni Morrison and other Black authors. In 1976, her journal article “The First Black Literary Magazine in American Letters” was published. In 1991, Burks contributed to a book titled “Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers”. The book included segments composed by a variety of different authors, and Burks wrote the “Montgomery Bus Boycott” section. The Women's Political Council In 1935, Burks was involved in an incident with a white motorist that led to her being arrested by a white police officer. The incident demonstrated the prevalence of racism in Montgomery to Burks, which she had felt previously shielded from due to her education level and status. The incident inspired Burks to focus her attention towards advocating for racial equality in Montgomery, and a year later she founded the Women’s Political Council. The WPC focused its efforts
Mary Fair Burks
34498925
Rosa Parks Day is a holiday in honor of the civil rights leader Rosa Parks, celebrated in the U.S. states of California and Missouri on her birthday, February 4, in Michigan on the first Monday after her birthday, and in Ohio and Oregon on the day she was arrested, December 1. Rosa Parks Day was created by the Michigan State Legislature and first celebrated in 1998. The California State Legislature followed suit in 2000. The holiday was first designated in the U.S. state of Ohio championed by Joyce Beatty, advocate who helped Ohio's legislation pass to honor the late leader. It is also celebrated by the Columbus Ohio bus system (COTA) with a special tribute to the late civil rights leader. As of 2014, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon proclaimed Rosa Parks Day official in the state. In 2014, Oregon governor John Kitzhaber declared that Oregon would celebrate its first Rosa Parks Day. In 2021, the Texas Legislature passed HB 3481, recognizing December 1 as Rosa Parks Day in the state. After Juneteenth became a federal holiday, there are growing calls for this day to also be observed at the federal level. On September 3, 2021, HR 5111 proposes that this day be added to the list of federal holidays. Observances by state Observances by cities and counties Origins Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was a seamstress by profession; she was also the secretary for the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. Twelve years before her history-making arrest, Parks was stopped from boarding a city bus by driver James F. Blake, who ordered her to board at the back door and then drove off without her. Parks vowed never again to ride a bus driven by Blake. As a member of the NAACP, Parks was an investigator assigned to cases of sexual assault. In 1945, she was sent to Abbeville, Alabama, to investigate the gang rape of Recy Taylor. The protest that arose around the Taylor case was the first instance of a nationwide civil rights protest, and it laid the groundwork for the Montgomery bus boycott. In 1955, Parks completed a course in "Race Relations" at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee where nonviolent civil disobedience had been discussed as a tactic. On December 1, 1955, Parks was sitting in the frontmost row for black people. When a Caucasian man boarded the bus, the bus driver told everyone in her row to move back. At that moment, Parks realized that she was again on a bus driven by Blake. While all of the other black people in her row complied, Parks refused, and was arrested for failing to obey the driver's seat assignments, as city ordinances did not explicitly mandate segregation but did give the bus driver authority to assign seats. Found guilty on December 5, Parks was fined $10 plus a court cost of $4, but she appealed. Parks' action gained notoriety leading to the Montgomery bus boycott, which was a seminal event in the civil
Rosa Parks Day
63475779
Viola White (1911–1954) was an African-American woman who lived in Montgomery, Alabama and is best known for her resistance to segregated bus laws. At 35 years old, in 1944, White was arrested for refusing to give up her seat. White's arrest occurred a decade before Rosa Parks' similar act of resistance, which is credited for starting the Montgomery Bus Boycott. White worked at Maxwell Air Force Base. Biography Bus incident White is best known for her 1944 act of resistance to bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama. While riding the bus, White was ordered by the bus driver to give up her seat. When she refused, the driver threatened to physically remover her; however, she continued to refuse. The driver called the police. When police arrived, they removed her from the bus, beat her, and arrested her. She was found guilty and charged a $10 fine. With help from civil rights leader and union organizer E.D. Nixon, White submitted several appeals to her charges in the Circuit Court several times. Nixon explains, "The city of Montgomery knew they couldn't win," so they used their power to prevent the appeals from ever being placed on the court calendar. Following White's attempts to appeal her charges, local police officers retaliated. A. A. Enger, a white police officer, kidnapped White's 16-year-old daughter, drove her to a cemetery, and sexually assaulted her. During the attack, her daughter memorized the officer's license plate so she could report Enger the next day. E.D Nixon attempted several times to get a judge to sign a warrant for Enger's arrest. Once the warrant was signed, the Police Chief tipped off Enger. Enger left town escaping being detained, fired, or facing any charges. Death and afterward White died ten years after the incident. At the time of her death, White's appeal still never made it onto the court Calendar. According to E.D Nixon, how White's case was handled at the state level helped activists in Montgomery form a blueprint for future segregation cases. Notably, it influenced how Rosa Parks's case was handled after she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on December 1, 1955. The organizers learned in order for any legal challenges against bus segregation to have an impact they would need to make it to the federal court. On the lessons learned from White's case, Nixon remarked:"We paid Mrs. Parks [fine] in Court of Common Appeal. It cost us fifty-one dollars. I believe that's what it was. Now, not that Mrs. Parks didn't have a good case, but they were going to do us just like they done us in the Viola White case. They going to hold — wanted to wear us out, wear us out and never move that case up the Circuit Court, and they was all dumbfounded when they found out that we done, decided to go into federal court with two or three people who had been mistreated on the bus." Additionally, while Parks was listed as a plaintiff in
Viola White
48377269
William Armistead "Tacky" Gayle, Jr. (March 5, 1896 – July 5, 1965) was an American politician for the Democratic Party, soldier and writer who was the mayor of Montgomery, Alabama, from 1951 to 1959. Gayle was born in 1896, the son of William A. and Mary (née Winn) Gayle. He served during World War I in the United States Navy, having attended the United States Naval Academy. He later attended the University of Alabama from 1915 to 1916. After the war, he worked for the Anderson Coal Company as a manager. Gayle, who held the rank of Brigadier General, was appointed by Governor Bibb Graves on April 2, 1935 to serve as Adjutant General of Alabama. He previously served as Assistant Adjutant General in Graves' administration. He resigned on October 1, 1935 to become commissioner of Montgomery, Alabama. During World War II, Gayle returned to active duty, serving in the United States Army Air Forces. After the war, he would continue to serve in the Alabama National Guard. He served as public works commissioner of the City of Montgomery when he was elected as mayor in 1951. Gayle served as Mayor of Montgomery from 1951 to 1959. The Montgomery bus boycott occurred during his term as mayor from 1955 to 1956. He was named the defendant of the Browder v. Gayle federal court case that ended the boycott and racial segregation on the buses in Montgomery. Gayle died on July 5, 1965. The W. A. Gayle Planetarium in Montgomery's Oak Park is named in his honor. Civil rights record Gayle was initially a moderate to even moderate liberal on the issue of civil rights for African-Americans, enjoying a high popularity among that race; however, as the bus boycotting continued, Gayle took more aggressive stances against African-Americans, particularly those boycotting, thus losing his popularity and standing among the city's African-American population. References 1896 births 1965 deaths 20th-century mayors of places in Alabama Mayors of Montgomery, Alabama Military personnel from Montgomery, Alabama United States Naval Academy alumni University of Alabama alumni
W. A. Gayle
68564939
Bus boycotts in South Africa were a series of protests that took place in the Union of South Africa and in the present Republic of South Africa against increasing prices of transport fees and segregating practices during the Apartheid to the present. Background In 1940 South African authorities passed the Electoral Laws Amendment Act, which provided for the compulsory registration of White voters only. The Act had been the focus of protests by the African People's Organization. The African National Congress (ANC) established a Department of Social Welfare to investigate the needs of the increasingly urban population. In early August 1943, the bus fare in Alexandra Township increased from four to five cents, sparking a boycott of 20,000 individuals, including Nelson Mandela. The boycott lasted nine days until the local bus company conceded and lowered the fare back to its original price. Along with the lowered fare, the boycott lead to the commission of inquiry regarding bus fare affordability. The following year, despite the commission's evidence indicating the majority of urban Africans could not afford the five-cent fare, the government gave permission to bus companies to increase the fare to five cents. This caused another boycott, this time lasting seven weeks, in Alexandra. 1957 Alexandra bus boycott On 7 January 1957 workers from Johannesburg and Pretoria townships began a boycott of PUTCO, due to the company increasing fares by 25% (one penny at that time) in order to get them out of a continuous financial crisis. This spontaneous act marked the start of a three-month period during which an estimated 70,000 workers joined in the action, which became known as the 1957 Alexandra Bus Boycott. PUTCO was forced to rescind the increase in the bus fare. Egerton railway station bus boycott massacre On 18 July 1983, Mdantsane and East London communities embarked on a bus boycott to protest an unannounced five cent increase in bus fares. The residents abandoned the partly Ciskei government-owned Ciskei Transport Corporation (CTC) buses for taxis and trains. On 4 August 1983, the Ciskei police tried to prevent residents from taking the train at Egerton train station in Mdantsane. After hesitating, the crowd advanced a few paces. However, as the police drew their guns, the people stopped. Without warning, the police fired into the crowd killing 11 and injuring 36 commuters, leading to what is now known as the Egerton railway station bus boycott massacre, the Mdantsane bus boycott massacre, the Egerton massacre, and similar terms. See also Anti-Apartheid Movement Apartheid PUTCO Montgomery bus boycott 1957 Alexandra Bus Boycott Defiance Campaign Human rights in South Africa References Movements for civil rights Boycotts of apartheid South Africa Protests in South Africa Opposition to apartheid in South Africa Events associated with apartheid Civil disobedience
Bus boycotts in South Africa
147408
Mary Louise Ware ( Smith; born 1937) is an African-American civil rights activist. She was arrested in October 1955 at the age of 18 in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat on the segregated bus system. She is one of several women who were arrested for this offense prior to Rosa Parks that year. Parks was the figure around whom the Montgomery bus boycott was organized, starting December 5, 1955. On February 1, 1956, Smith was one of five women named as plaintiffs in the federal civil suit, Browder v. Gayle, challenging the constitutionality of the state and local bus segregation laws. On June 13, 1956, a three-judge panel of the United States District Court ruled that the laws were unconstitutional. The ruling was upheld by the United States Supreme Court on November 13 in a landmark decision, and in December it declined to reconsider. On December 20, 1956, the Supreme Court ordered Alabama to desegregate its buses and the Montgomery bus boycott ended. Early life and education Mary Louise Smith was born in Montgomery, Alabama into a Catholic family. She and all her siblings attended and graduated from St. Jude Educational Institute. She was baptized at St. Jude's Church, where she was a parishioner. At the age of 18, on October 21, 1955, Smith was returning home on the Montgomery city bus, and was ordered to relinquish her seat to a white passenger who had boarded later. She refused to do so and was arrested. She was charged with failure to obey segregation orders, some 40 days before the arrest of Rosa Parks on similar charges. She was arrested and fined $12. Activist E.D. Nixon, leading some of the bus boycott movement, shared information that Smith's father was an alcoholic, and she was not the right symbol to withstand the publicity. The family and neighbors dispute this characterization. Additionally, she was considered not the "right class" to be the rallying point for the movement. Smith's father represented her in court, without aid from outside political organizations. Attorney Fred Gray recruited Smith and her father to become plaintiffs in a federal civil rights class-action lawsuit to end segregated seating on city buses. Browder v. Gayle On February 1, 1956, Gray and other attorneys filed a civil suit, Browder v. Gayle in the United States District Court, challenging state and local laws on bus segregation. Smith was one of five plaintiffs, including Aurelia Browder, Claudette Colvin, Susie McDonald, and Jeanetta Reese. (Reese left the case that month because of intimidation.) The women, other than Reese, testified before a three-judge panel, and on June 13, 1956, the court ruled that the laws were unconstitutional, based on equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Appealed by the city and state, the case made its way to the United States Supreme Court. On November 13, 1956, it affirmed the lower court's ruling. On December 17, it declined an appeal by the city and state to reconsider, and on December 20 ordered the
Mary Louise Smith (activist)
32077710
Harold Wayne Greenhaw (February 17, 1940 – May 31, 2011) was an American writer and journalist. The author of 22 books who chronicled changes in the American South from the civil rights movement to the rise of a competitive Republican Party, he is known for his works on the Ku Klux Klan and the exposition of the My Lai Massacre of 1968. Greenhaw wrote for various Alabamian newspapers and magazines, worked as the state's tourism director, and was considered "a strong voice for his native state". Biography Born in Sheffield, Alabama, Greenhaw and his family moved to Tuscaloosa when he was ten. He attended Tuscaloosa High School, and at age fourteen contracted polio and spent the better part of a year in a body cast. During this time he read Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner and decided to become a writer. He enrolled at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa and studied under the creative writing professor Hudson Strode. He wrote for The Montgomery Journal (which was later incorporated into the Montgomery Advertiser) and helped break the story of the indictment of William Calley for murder on September 12, 1969; Greenhaw was one of only a few people who spent time with Calley in that time, having him over at his house in Montgomery, Alabama. The story earned him a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 1973. He wrote for and edited the Alabama Magazine in the 1980s, and wrote for The New York Times and Time. From 1993 to 1994, he served as Alabama's state tourism director under Democratic Governor James Folsom Jr., and was awarded the Harper Lee Award for Alabama's Distinguished Writer in 2006. His papers are held in Auburn Montgomery's library. Greenhaw died on May 31, 2011, in Birmingham from complications during heart surgery. Work His book Fighting the Devil in Dixie: How Civil Rights Activists Took on the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama was hailed as "an important addition to the civil rights record"; the book is "a scholarly account based on interviews, court records, and newspaper articles" that has "readability and poignancy". Greenhaw navigates through the explosive events that spurred a sea change in race relations, encompassing both the villains-e.g., Robert "Dynamite Bob" Chambliss, who supplied the explosives responsible for many of the bombings, including the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in 1963-and the numerous heroes, such as the sole early black lawyers in Selma, J.L. Chestnut Jr., and Orzell Billingsley; attorney Charles Morgan in Birmingham; the intrepid Freedom Fighters, demonstrators and student writers for the Southern Courier; and Morris "Bubba" Dees Jr., who moved from representing racists to ardent civil-rights lawyer and co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The author skillfully weaves a rich historical tapestry from his deeply engaged, firsthand observations. He co-wrote with Donnie Williams The Thunder of Angels: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People Who Broke the Back of Jim Crow. Williams and Greenhaw "expose the reader to lesser-known figures" of the Montgomery bus boycott, "bring[ing] to life the
Wayne Greenhaw
36220784
Lucille Times (April 22, 1921 – August 16, 2021) was an American civil rights activist. She was active in the struggle for civil rights in Montgomery, Alabama throughout her adult life. Times worked for the cause at a time when the city was at the center of the national movement. Early life Lucille was born on April 22, 1921, in Hope Hull, Alabama. Her mother died when Lucille was very young and she was raised by her father, William Sharp in a Christian home with six siblings. During her childhood years the family lived in Chicago, Detroit and Alabama. Mr. Sharp strongly imprinted two ideas on Lucille: The first: "You are no better than anyone else" and the second: "When you're right don't back down." Lucille married her husband, Charlie Times on February 3, 1939. She and Charlie joined the NAACP shortly after marriage, and in 1950, when the NAACP was banned the couple hosted meetings in their home, despite the danger. In 1950, both Lucille and her husband became registered voters. In 1952, they opened the Times Café (a.k.a. "Sugarhill") on Holt Street, which operated continuously until 1986. Activism In Detroit When Times lived in Detroit, she was part of a successful boycott of a butcher shop on 12th Street (later named Rosa Parks Blvd). The shop's Polish proprietor sold some bad meat to a black man and refused to replace the meat or give him a refund. The neighborhood residents became indignant and refused to shop there and the shop went out of business in less than a month. Montgomery bus boycott In a public conversation at the Rosa Parks Museum in 2017, Times recounted her story following her claim that she started the Montgomery bus boycott. On June 15, 1955, she drove her 1955 Buick Special to the cleaners on the Mobile Highway. On the way, bus driver James Blake tried to force her car off of the road three times. After she pulled into the cleaners parking lot, Blake exited his bus and confronted her with, "you're a black son of a bitch!" Times responded with "you're a white son of a bitch!" and they immediately started physically fighting. Soon two motorcycle policemen arrived to break them up. At that time Times bit Blake's left biceps. After splitting them up one of the policemen talked to Blake separately and then approached Times angrily with "do you know that was a white man you called a 'white son of a bitch'?" Times responded "do you know that I was a black woman that he called a 'black son of a bitch.'" The policeman became infuriated and shook his flashlight in Times' face and said, "if you were a man I'd beat your head to jelly." That night E. D. Nixon came to the Times' Holt Street house and Times told him the story. Nixon responded, "I cannot do anything about what happened off of the bus, something's got to happen on the bus." Times' reply was, "I'm
Lucille Times
71446483
Lurel Roy Hackett MBE (19 September 1928 – 2 August 2022) was a Jamaican-born activist and long-time civil rights campaigner for the British African-Caribbean community in Bristol, England. He was one of the primary organisers of the Bristol Bus Boycott, which protested against the Bristol Omnibus Company's ban on employing black and Asian drivers and conductors. These events then paved the way for the Race Relations Act of 1965, the first legislation in the UK to address racial discrimination. He was also a co-founder of the Commonwealth Co-ordinated Committee (CCC) which set up the St. Paul's Carnival (originally known as the St Paul’s Festival), a major cultural event in Bristol. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to the community in Bristol. He was also a member of the Bristol Race Equality Council and founder of West Indian Parents’ and Friends’ Association (WIPFA). Early life Hackett grew up in Islington in St Mary, Jamaica. He worked as an insurance broker alongside other jobs, but still struggled to make enough money to eat. In 1952, he travelled to Britain by ship, as part of the Windrush generation, and lived in Liverpool, London and Wolverhampton, before settling in Bristol. Once in Bristol, he faced racism from his first day, as boarding houses refused to give him a room as soon as they saw he was black, and he ended up spending his first night sleeping in a doorway. Bus Boycott and anti-racist activism In 1955 the Passenger Group of the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU), which represented bus workers, had passed a resolution that black and Asian workers should not be employed as bus crews at the Bristol Omnibus Company, despite a reported labour shortage on the buses. This was revealed by the Bristol Evening Post in 1961 and caused outrage among black communities. In 1962, Ena Hackett, Roy's wife, applied for a job as a conductor with the bus company, but was rejected despite being fully qualified for the post. Along with Owen Henry, Audley Evans and Prince Brown, Roy Hackett formed an action group to respond to this colour bar. Henry introduced Paul Stephenson, who was the city's first black youth officer, to the group, who then became their spokesperson. The group were inspired by Rosa Parks' activism and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and decided to hold their own Bristol Bus Boycott, which they announced at a press conference on 29 April 1963. The boycott attracted national attention, with the politician Tony Benn, Labour MP for Bristol South East, committing to staying "off the buses, even if I have to find a bike". The Labour party leader, soon-to-be Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, spoke out against the colour bar at an Anti-Apartheid Movement rally in London in early May. The organisers' strategies included drawing parallels with US segregation and shaming the authorities, while causing as much disruption as possible via pickets of bus depots and routes. On
Roy Hackett
47119733
Steven L. Reed (born February 20, 1974) is an American jurist, politician, and the mayor of Montgomery, Alabama. A member of the Democratic Party, he was a probate judge in Montgomery County. Reed is the first black mayor of Montgomery. Early life and education Steven L. Reed was born in Montgomery, Alabama, to Joe and Mollie Reed (née Perry) as one of three children. His father, Joe, was one of the first class of elected members of the Montgomery City Council from 1975 to 1999. Reed earned a Bachelor of Arts from Morehouse College and a Master of Business Administration from Vanderbilt University. Reed is a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, having been initiated into its Theta Alpha graduate chapter in 1998. Early career He was a financial analyst, then changed careers and lobbied the Alabama legislature, and worked for Lieutenant Governor Jim Folsom Jr. Reed was elected as probate judge in 2012. In February 2015, he was the first probate judge in the state of Alabama who started issuing same-sex marriage licenses after district judge Callie V. Granade struck the state's ban on same-sex marriage, defying Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. In March 2015, after a ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court, he stopped issuing them. Mayor of Montgomery Reed ran for mayor of Montgomery in the 2019 election, and defeated his opponent David Woods in a runoff. He was officially sworn in as mayor on November 12, 2019. Prior to being sworn in, Reed took part in a prayer service at the historic Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, which gained notoriety at the start of the Civil rights movement for leading the Montgomery bus boycott. Reed ran for re-election in 2023, and defeated three opponents with 57% of the vote. Elections Montgomery County Probate Judge 2012 Democratic Primary 2012 General Election 2018 General Election Montgomery Mayor 2019 First round 2019 Second round 2023 General References External links Biography, Montgomery Mayor's Office Campaign website Steven L. Reed Living people African-American mayors in Alabama Alabama Democrats Alabama state court judges Mayors of Montgomery, Alabama Probate court judges in the United States Morehouse College alumni Vanderbilt University alumni African-American judges 1974 births
Steven Reed (mayor)
20095685
Aurelia Shines Browder Coleman (January 29, 1919 – February 4, 1971) was an African-American civil rights activist in Montgomery, Alabama. In April 1955, almost eight months before the arrest of Rosa Parks in the same city and a month after the arrest of Claudette Colvin, she was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white rider while she was in the "Whites Only Area". She refused to move to the "Colored Area" thus leading to her arrest. Biography Early life and family Aurelia Browder was born on January 29, 1919, in Montgomery, Alabama, where she resided her whole life. She was the sole economic support of her six children after she was widowed. She had several different careers throughout her life including working as a seamstress, nurse midwife and teacher She was a strong, smart woman, one who Jo Ann Gibson Robinson described in her memoir as "well-read, highly intelligent, fearless." Education Browder completed high school in her thirties and eventually earned a bachelor's degree in science from Alabama State University. She graduated with honors and was in the National Alpha Kappa Mu Honor Society there. While at Alabama State University, Browder met Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, a professor in the English Department, fellow Civil Rights activist, and member of the Women's Political Council. Robinson inspired Browder to get involved and tackle the injustices in the transportation system, encouraging her to participate in the lawsuit proposed by the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). Involvement in civil rights Prior to her involvement in the Montgomery bus boycott, Browder was active in the voter registration campaigns of the 1950s. She spent time tutoring African Americans who wanted to take the voter registration exam, worked to eliminate poll taxes, and provided transportation to the courthouse for those who wanted to register. Aurelia Browder became associated with several Civil Rights groups during her time including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Browder v. Gayle Arrest and filing of case Aurelia Browder was arrested on April 19, 1955, almost eight months before the arrest of Rosa Parks and a month after the arrest of Claudette Colvin, for sitting in the white section of a public city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was convicted and fined for her alleged crime. On February 1, 1956, Fred Gray, the attorney for the Montgomery Improvement Association, and filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court on behalf of five black women who had been the victims of discrimination on local buses, joined by Thurgood Marshall and Robert L. Carter of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Plaintiffs and Defendants Browder v. Gayle was filed listing five plaintiffs—Aurelia Browder, Claudette Colvin, Susie McDonald, Jeanetta Reese, and Mary Louise Smith. Browder was picked as the lead plaintiff because of her age. Two of the other plaintiffs were teenagers, and the other two were senior citizens. Browder was 37 at the time, putting her
Aurelia Browder
1717121
Theodore Judson Jemison (August 1, 1918 – November 15, 2013), better known as T. J. Jemison, was the president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. from 1982 to 1994. It is the largest African-American religious organization. He oversaw the construction of the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee, the headquarters of his convention. In 1953, while minister of a large church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Jemison helped lead the first civil rights boycott of segregated seating in public bus service. The organization of free rides, coordinated by churches, was a model used later in 1955–1956 by the Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama. Jemison was one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. In 2003, the 50th anniversary of the Baton Rouge bus boycott was honored with three days of events in the city. These were organized by a young resident born two decades after the action. Background T. J. Jemison was born in 1918 in Selma, Alabama where his father, the Reverend David V. Jemison, was the pastor of the Tabernacle Baptist Church. He came from a family of prominent ministers and strong churchgoing women. He attended local segregated public schools. Jemison earned a bachelor's degree from Alabama State University, a historically black college in the state capital of Montgomery, where he joined Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He earned a divinity degree at Virginia Union University in the capital city of Richmond, Virginia, to prepare for the ministry. He later did graduate study at New York University in New York City. Career In 1949, Jemison was first called as a minister by Mt. Zion First Baptist Church in Baton Rouge. There he worked chiefly on internal church matters, overseeing construction and continued fundraising of a new church building. At the time, his father was serving as President of the National Baptist Convention, the association of African-American Baptist churches established in 1895. Within a few years, Jemison became involved in an early civil rights action. In 1950, the city had ended black-owned buses, requiring all residents to use its monopoly system, which enforced segregated seating. It was racially segregated by law; in practice, black citizens had to sit at the back half of the bus or stand, even if seats in the front "white" section were empty. Jemison said later he was struck by "watching buses pass by his church and seeing black people standing in the aisles, not allowed by law to sit down in seats reserved for whites. 'I thought that was just out of order, that was just cruel'." Making up 80 percent of the passengers on the system, African Americans were fed up with standing on buses while "white" seats remained empty, particularly after the company had raised fares from ten to fifteen cents in January 1953. Rev. Jemison took up the issue with the Baton Rouge City Council; he testified on February 11, 1953, against the fare increase and asked for an end of the practice of reserving so many seats
T. J. Jemison
53880699
The Rosa Parks Museum is located on the Troy University at Montgomery satellite campus, in Montgomery, Alabama. It has information, exhibits, and some artifacts from the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. This museum is named after civil rights activist Rosa Parks, who is known for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person on a city bus. Museum Inside the museum, there are interactive activities and even a reenactment of what happened on the bus as if you were outside the bus watching. There are artifacts in the museum from the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This museum is significant to Montgomery because it exhibits events that had occurred during the civil rights era in Alabama. one of the reasons to build the museum was due to the bus boycott that occurred in Montgomery. It was built in Rosa Parks's honor to educate and tell people of her story. While the actual bus the on which the incident occurred is on display at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, there is one on exhibit which is identical to it. Dedication Troy University in Montgomery, Alabama wanted to dedicate their new library and museum to Rosa Parks, "The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement". The library carries her name and it commemorates her refusal to give up her seat on the Montgomery City Bus to a white man. The museum and library were opened on the anniversary of the day she refused to give up her seat: December 1. For the 65th anniversary of the boycott, two new traveling exhibitions were added. "The Women of the Movement" tells the stories of Jo Ann Robinson, Aurelia Browder, Claudette Colvin, Mary Louise Smith and Lucille Times. "The Legacy of Rosa Parks" includes the museum history and the relevance of nonviolent disobedience today. See also List of museums focused on African Americans References External links Museums in Montgomery, Alabama Troy University History museums in Alabama Civil rights movement museums Montgomery bus boycott African-American museums in Alabama Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks Museum
3026045
Browder v. Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707 (1956), was a case heard before a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on Montgomery and Alabama state bus segregation laws. The panel consisted of Middle District of Alabama Judge Frank Minis Johnson, Northern District of Alabama Judge Seybourn Harris Lynne, and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Rives. The main plaintiffs in the case were Aurelia Browder, Claudette Colvin, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith. Jeanetta Reese had originally been a plaintiff in the case, but intimidation by segregationists (including threatening phone calls and pressure from a senior police officer for whom she worked) caused her to withdraw in February. She falsely claimed she had not agreed to the lawsuit, which led to an unsuccessful attempt to disbar Fred Gray for supposedly improperly representing her. On June 5, 1956, the District Court ruled 2–1, with Lynne dissenting, that bus segregation is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The state and city appealed, and the decision was summarily affirmed by the United States Supreme Court on November 13, 1956. Background Shortly after beginning the Montgomery bus boycott in December 1955, black community leaders began to discuss filing a federal lawsuit to challenge the City of Montgomery and Alabama bus segregation laws. They sought a declaratory judgment that Alabama state statutes and ordinances of the city of Montgomery providing for and enforcing racial segregation on "privately"-operated buses were in violation of Fourteenth Amendment protections for equal treatment. The cause of action was brought under Reconstruction-era civil rights legislation, specifically 42 U.S.C. sections 1981, 1983. The United States District Court had original jurisdiction to hear the case because it was a federal question (section 1331) and because it concerned civil rights (section 1343). A three-judge district court panel was required under 28 U.S.C. § 2281 for the granting of an interlocutory or the permanent injunction restraining the enforcement of a state statute by restraining the action of a state officer, such as an official of the Alabama Public Service Commission. The court held that since officials admitted that they were enforcing state statutes, a three-judge court had jurisdiction over the case. About two months after the bus boycott began, civil rights activists reconsidered the case of Claudette Colvin. She was a 15-year-old girl who had been the first person arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, nine months before Rosa Parks' action. Fred Gray, E.D. Nixon, president of the NAACP and secretary of the new Montgomery Improvement Association; and Clifford Durr (a white lawyer who, with his wife, Virginia Durr, was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement) searched for the ideal case law to challenge the constitutional legitimacy of Montgomery and Alabama bus segregation laws. Durr was concerned that an appeal of Parks's case would get tied up in the Alabama state courts and thought that they needed a way
Browder v. Gayle
2996470
James Frederick Blake (April 14, 1912 – March 21, 2002) was an American bus driver in Montgomery, Alabama, whom Rosa Parks defied in 1955, prompting the Montgomery bus boycott. Early life Born on April 14, 1912, Blake was drafted into the Army on December 23, 1943, at Fort McClellan in Anniston, Alabama. He worked as a bus driver for Montgomery Bus City Lines until 1999. After he retired, he became a member of the Morningview Baptist Church. Arrest of Rosa Parks On June 15, 1955, while driving a bus in Montgomery, Blake tried to run off the road a car driven by a black woman, Lucille Times. When she stopped to run an errand in Montgomery, he parked his bus across the street and proceeded to yell at her and they exchanged epithets and started fighting. Furious, Ms. Times contacted the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the bus company but received no response. She also sent unpublished letters to newspapers in Montgomery and Atlanta. For the next six months, Ms. Times retaliated against the bus company by driving by bus stops to offer free rides to waiting black passengers. In effect, Times began a boycott of the bus company six months before the NAACP and Rosa Parks began the better-known boycott of that company. In 1955, Montgomery's black leaders were preparing to make a legal case against racial discrimination on the city bus system. Rosa Parks was selected to be the central figure in a challenge to the Jim Crow laws which supported segregation. Years before, in 1943, Parks had boarded a bus driven by Blake. She entered the front door of that bus and paid her fare; as she continued on to take a seat, Blake told her to disembark and enter the bus again from the back door, a rule imposed by some drivers. When she got off to re-enter through the back however, Blake drove the bus away. Parks vowed to herself she would never ride with Blake again. Blake and Parks encountered each other again on December 1, 1955 (Parks having forgotten to check who was driving the bus on this occasion), when Blake ordered Parks and three other black people to move to the back of his Cleveland Avenue bus (number 2857) in order to make room for a white passenger. By Parks' account, Blake said, "Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats." When she refused, Blake first contacted the bus company and called his boss remarking, "I called the company first, just like I was supposed to do," Blake recalled in a later interview with the Washington Post. "I got my supervisor on the line. He said, 'Did you warn her, Jim?' I said, 'I warned her.' And he said, and I remember it just like I'm standing here, 'Well then, Jim, you do it, you got to exercise your powers and put her off, hear?' And that's just what I did." Parks,
James F. Blake
9709480
The Long Walk Home is a 1990 American historical drama film starring Sissy Spacek and Whoopi Goldberg, and directed by Richard Pearce. Set in Alabama, it is based on a screenplay about the Montgomery bus boycott (1955–1956) by John Cork and a short film by the same name, produced by students at the University of Southern California in 1988. Origins The feature film is based on a short screenplay and film of the same name, written by John Cork, then a graduate student in directing at USC. He had submitted his script to the Cinema Department for consideration, hoping also to direct it. While USC selected Cork's script for production, the department assigned Beverlyn E. Fray, another student, to direct it. The scenario on which the film is based, actually happened to Cork and his maid, Elizabeth Gregory Taylor, in his hometown of Montgomery, Alabama. The short film won several awards, including first place at the Black American Cinema Society. Cork, however, was unhappy with the finished project and unsuccessfully tried to block screenings of the short film. Plot The film was expanded as a feature. Set in Montgomery, Alabama, United States, during the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, it follows Odessa Cotter (Whoopi Goldberg), an African-American woman who works as a maid/nanny for Miriam Thompson (Sissy Spacek). Odessa and her family confront typical issues faced by African Americans in the South at the time: poverty, racism, segregation, and violence. The black community has begun a widespread boycott of the city-owned buses to end segregation; Odessa is forced to take long walks both ways to work. Miriam Thompson offers to give her a ride two days a week to ensure she gets to work on time and to lessen the fatigue her "long walk home" is causing. Around the city, some informal carpools and other systems are starting, but most of the blacks are forced to walk to work. As the boycott continues, tensions rise in the city. Blacks had been the majority riders on the city-owned buses, and the system is suffering financially. Miriam's decision to support Odessa by giving her a ride becomes an issue with her husband, Norman Thompson (Dwight Schultz), and other prominent members of the white community who want the boycott to end. Miriam has to choose between what she believes is right or succumb to pressure from her husband and their friends. After an argument with her husband, Miriam decides to follow her heart. She becomes involved in a carpool group to help other black workers like Odessa. In the film's final scene, Miriam and her daughter Mary Catherine (Lexi Randall), who is the narrator of the story in flashback, join Odessa and the other protesters in standing against oppression. Cast Sissy Spacek as Miriam Thompson Whoopi Goldberg as Odessa Cotter Dwight Schultz as Norman Thompson Ving Rhames as Herbert Cotter Dylan Baker as Tunker Thompson Erika Alexander as Selma Cotter Lexi Randall as Mary Catherine (as Lexi Faith Randall) Richard Parnell Habersham as Theodore
The Long Walk Home
58718828
"Rosa" is the third episode of the eleventh series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. It was written by Malorie Blackman and executive producer Chris Chibnall, and directed by Mark Tonderai, and was first broadcast on BBC One on 21 October 2018. In the episode, alien time traveller the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), and her companions Graham O'Brien (Bradley Walsh), Ryan Sinclair (Tosin Cole), and Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill), arrive in Alabama in 1955, and find themselves seeking to stop time-travelling criminal Krasko (Joshua Bowman) from preventing Rosa Parks (Vinette Robinson) influencing the American civil rights movement during the Montgomery bus boycott. The episode's plot concerns racial segregation in the United States at the time, including the law upheld in Alabama regarding municipal transit during this period. The closing credits of "Rosa" were played out with the single "Rise Up" by Andra Day, making it one of few episodes in the programme's history not to end with the traditional closing theme. The episode was watched by 8.41 million viewers, and received positive reviews from critics. Plot When the Thirteenth Doctor attempts to return to present-day Sheffield, the TARDIS instead brings her and her friends to Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. Before attempting to leave, the Doctor finds that there are traces of artron energy in the area from another time travel device. Deciding to investigate, the group learn that they have arrived the day before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat as bus driver James F. Blake demanded on 1 December, effectively influencing the civil rights movement. Tracing the energy, the group locate a suitcase of equipment from the future, but are unable to learn more when they are forced to flee when its owner attempts to hit them with a time displacement device. The Doctor suspects he is trying to alter Parks' history. Leaving her friends to research everything behind the critical moment on 1 December, the Doctor returns to examine the suitcase's contents, before using it to shield herself from its owner — a rehabilitated mass murderer named Krasko. The Doctor learns that Krasko seeks to prevent the Montgomery bus boycott from occurring, but cannot simply kill Parks, since his neural implants prevent him from killing any living being. The Doctor is unable to convince him to abandon his plan, despite taking his time displacement device and destroying his vortex manipulator. When the Doctor learns that Krasko had arranged for Blake to take the day off, she and her friends focus on keeping history on track despite Krasko working to counter their efforts. Ryan encounters Krasko blocking the bus route with a car after removing false notices at bus stops, learning that Krasko succeeded in keeping the bus from reaching its passenger quota. Ryan learns that Krasko's actions are motivated by his deeply racist views, and uses the criminal's own displacement device to send him into the past to stop him completely. Removing the blockade, he and the others rejoin the Doctor on the bus
Rosa (Doctor Who)
26084250
The Jefferson Franklin Jackson House, commonly known as the Jackson-Community House, is a historic Italianate-style house in Montgomery, Alabama. It was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on July 21, 1978, and to the National Register of Historic Places on May 17, 1984. History The two-story frame house was built by Jefferson Franklin Jackson in 1853. Jackson served as a United States Attorney for northern and central Alabama. He died during the Civil War years. His wife subsequently remarried to Thomas H. Watts, Governor of Alabama from 1863 to 1865. Descendants of the family owned the house into the 20th century and it remained a residence until 1943. The house was purchased in 1943 by the Montgomery City Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, an African American organization comprising twenty-five adult clubs and fifteen youth clubs, for use as a meeting place. The Montgomery City Federation had been formed in 1939 with a goal of promoting positive citizenship. The house became known as the Community House and was used as a Girl Scouts headquarters, a social and civic center, and, in December 1948, the first Montgomery library open to African Americans. Significantly, the house was used to host meetings of the Women's Political Council. They were the first group to officially call for a boycott of the racially segregated Montgomery bus system, leading to the Montgomery bus boycott. See also National Register of Historic Places listings in Montgomery County, Alabama Properties on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage in Montgomery County, Alabama References Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama Houses completed in 1853 Italianate architecture in Alabama National Register of Historic Places in Montgomery, Alabama Properties on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage African-American history in Montgomery, Alabama Houses in Montgomery, Alabama
Jefferson Franklin Jackson House