Montgomery Bus Protests
After feeling confident that they had done enough work to desegregate public facilities, they turned their heads to public transport. The Montgomery Bus Protests were very risky by way of the NAACP and the Women's Political Council. The bus protests were very simple; people just refused to cooperate with the segregation rules. They were very dangerous as some of these protesters encountered some very angry segregationists and racists.
Beginning:
These protests started on an afternoon in Montgomery, Alabama on March 2nd, 1955. An African-American schoolgirl decided to stand up for the American Constitution and refuse to cooperate with a white passenger. In the bus-segregation "rule book", it says that black passengers must give up their seat for a white passenger if there were none. This 15-year old, however, refused to follow the rules. The other passengers, who were mainly white, shoved and taunted her, then after all this happened, she was arrested for violating the the Alabama segregation rules.
|
Above: Martin Luther King Jr and a fellow protestant on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
|
Rosa Parks:
Rosa Parks was one of the most prestigious leaders of the Black Civil Rights Movement. Rosa's beginning in the Civil Rights fight was similar to that of the 15-year old's. She refused to give up her seat for a white passenger, and was arrested and fined.
After these events happened, the Montgomery Women's Political Council asked for a boycott of all public buses in Montgomery, and to find other ways to travel (see quote on right). The boycott worked, resulting in the desegregation of buses, showed that non-violent protest is powerful, and put Rosa in the history books as the "first lady of civil rights". |
“Another woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person … This has to be stopped. Negroes have rights too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negro … We are … asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial.”
|