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Activists of All Ages
On March 2, 1955, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin was riding the bus home when she was asked to move to the back – and she stayed seated. She was arrested and thrown in jail for violating segregation laws.
In October 1955, eighteen-year-old Mary Louise Smith refused to give up her seat. She, too, was arrested for violating segregation laws.
Finally, on December 1, 1955, experienced activist Rosa Parks boarded the bus after shopping and sat down. She did not know at the time that she would become the face of the movement, she was just tired. She was told to move and refused, and was promptly arrested. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), of which Parks was a secretary, organized a one-day bus boycott for the day of her trial on December 5. After she was declared guilty, the boycott continued.
Twelve Months of Bus Boycotts
But for those who largely depended on the bus system for their transportation, an extended boycott required additional planning. Organizers across Montgomery, Alabama, got together to sustain each other for however long the boycott lasted.
The boycott was supported and run by the community. Together they created a ride share program, organizing car pools and connecting people to those with their own cars who could get them to where they needed to go. Other community members like Georgia Gilmore raised money for gasoline for the drivers by selling baked goods.
It wasn’t all baked goods and carpools, of course. The local racists threatened everyone involved. Rosa Parks and her husband Raymond received death threats. Dr. King’s home was bombed. The local courts tried to say that boycotting the bus systems was illegal.
Local pastor, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and others got involved in the efforts as well. When Rosa Parks was found “guilty” on state charges for violating segregation laws, her lawyer filed a federal law suit. Attorney Thurgood Marshall, the same lawyer who argued for the Brown family in Brown vs Board of Education in 1954, argued before the Supreme Court again against the segregated bus system in Montgomery in the case Browder vs Gayle. On December 20, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that all buses in Montgomery had to integrate. The boycott ended that day.
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Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose
Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin: Civil Rights Heroes by Tracey Baptiste, illustrated by Shauna J. Grant
Pies From Nowhere: How Georgia Gilmore Sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Dee Romito, illustrated by Laura Freeman
E.D. Nixon
The Unsung Father of the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Michael Eaddy, illustrated by Michael Escoffery
Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Russell Freedman
The Thunder of Angels
The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People Who Broke the Back of Jim Crow by Donnie Williams with Wayne Greenhaw
