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| Public
Transportation |
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The
Montgomery Bus boycott
Although it was the case
Browder v. Gayle that a district
court and, eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court
would use to strike down segregation on buses,
the Montgomery Bus Boycott was perhaps
the best known protest of the segregation
of the US transportation industry. When Rosa
Parks refused to give up her seat to a white
person in Montgomery, Alabama, and was arrested
in December 1955, she set off a train of events
that generated a momentum the civil rights
movement had never before experienced. Local
civil rights leaders were hoping for such
an opportunity to test the city's segregation
laws. Deciding to boycott the buses, the African
American community soon formed a new organization
to supervise the boycott, the Montgomery Improvement
Association (MIA). The young pastor of the
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Reverend Martin
Luther King, Jr., was chosen as the first
MIA leader. The boycott, more successful than
anyone hoped, led to the 1956 Supreme Court
decision in Browder v. Gayle banning
segregated buses. |
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sympathetic
responses
In the black community, various
groups pitched in to help blacks get around without
using the buses. Black taxi drivers charged ten
cents per ride, a fare equal to the cost to ride
the bus, in support of the boycott. When word
of this reached city officials, the order went
out to fine any cab driver who charged a rider
less than 45 cents. People also organized
carpools and used non-motorized means to get around,
like biking and walking. Across the nation, black
churches raised money to support the boycott and
collected new and slightly used shoes to replace
the tattered footwear of Montgomery's black citizens,
many of whom walked everywhere, rather than ride
the buses and submit to Jim Crow. |
| The
Freedom Riders |
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Conceived
in 1947, the first Freedom
Ride was called the Journey
of Reconciliation, and
it was sponsored by the
Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE) and the Fellowship
of Reconciliation (FOR).
The Riders were a group
of interracial passengers
whose goal was to test
the Supreme Court’s
decision in the Irene Morgan
case, which declared that
the segregation of interstate
passengers was unconstitutional.
The Journey of Reconciliation
focused on the upper South,
and was quickly dismantled
due to heavy resistance.
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the
2nd freedom ride
In 1961, another Freedom Ride
took shape when thirteen interracial students,
organized by CORE and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC), courageously decided to test
the 1960 Supreme Court ruling in Boynton v.
Virginia. Boynton extended the Morgan decision
by declaring segregation illegal in bus terminals,
restaurants, restrooms, and other interstate travel
facilities. The Freedom Riders received nonviolent
action training, and prepared themselves for the
violence they would face as they attempted to
ride an integrated bus from Washington DC to New
Orleans, Louisiana. As expected, the Freedom Riders
encountered brutal violence, and the first Freedom
Ride ended in Alabama, where they were beaten,
firebombed, and jailed. |
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May 17, 1961, the Freedom Rides resumed when ten
students rode from Nashville to Birmingham. They
were arrested before reaching their destination,
bringing more attention to their efforts. On May
29, the Kennedy administration ordered the Interstate
Commerce Commission to ban segregation in all its
facilities. The Freedom Rides of 1961 left a legacy
of strength and conviction that continues to influence
students and activists to fight for equal rights. |
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| References & Additional
Resources |
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Books
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 Massey,
Douglas S. and Denton, Nancy A. 1998. American
Apartheid : Segregation and the Making
of the Underclass. Harvard University
Press.
A major contribution
to our understanding of both racism and
poverty. One hopes that the book will be
read, not only by other scholars and policy
analysts, but by a broad spectrum of citizens
and by all the leaders of the nation. (Andrew
Billingsley, Washington Post Book World)
|
Boyle,
Kevin. 2004. Arc
of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil
Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age.
NY: Henry Holt.
History professor Boyle has brilliantly
rescued from obscurity a fascinating chapter
in American history that had profound implications
for the rise of the Civil Rights movement.
With a novelist's craft, Boyle opens with
a compelling prologue portraying the migration
of African Americans in the 1920s to the
industrial cities of the North, where they
sought a better life and economic opportunity.
This stirring section, with echoes of Dickens's
Hard Times, sets the stage for the ordeal
of Dr. Ossian Sweet, who moves with his
young family to a previously all-white Detroit
neighborhood. When the local block association
incites a mob to drive Sweet back to the
ghetto, he gathers friends and acquaintances
to defend his new home with a deadly arsenal.
The resulting shooting death of a white
man leads to a sensational murder trial,
featuring the legendary Clarence Darrow,
fresh from the Scopes Monkey trial, defending
Sweet, his family and their associates.
This popular history, which explores the
politics of racism and the internecine battles
within the nascent Civil Rights movement,
grips right up to the stunning jaw-dropper
of an ending. (From Publishers Weekly) |
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Websites
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America
on the Move
http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove/exhibition/exhibition_9_1.html
From the Smithsonian exhibition online, here
can be found multiple resources to explore
changes in transportation through history.
Specifically related with the subject of segregation
is Chapter 9 of the exhibition: "Lives
on the Railroad" narrating the events
and circumstances around the time the Supreme
Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision
declared racial segregation legal. |
Rivers of Change
http://www.riversofchange.org/
The world knows of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and Mrs. Rosa Parks, but people know little about the events that propelled them to such fame and recognition. Rivers of Change: The Legacy of Five Unheralded Women in Montgomery and their Struggle for Justice and Dignity©” is about the struggles of five unknown women that were instrumental in starting and ending the Montgomery bus boycott. It is the story of women who reversed a U.S. Supreme Court decision. |
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[Last
updated on
June 28, 2006
]
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Rosa
Parks became the visible face for
the well known bus boycott, nine months
after another NAACP activist, Claudette
Colvin, boarded a bus on March 2, 1955 and
refused to give up her seat to a White man.
At the time, Colvin was handcuffed, arrested
and forcibly removed from the bus and along
with Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and
Mary Louise Smith served as plaintiffs in
the legal action challenging Montgomery's
segregated public transportation system.