Montgomery Bus Boycott

• Rosa Parks and I share the same birthday: February 4th


  Mary Fair Burks was actually tired and didn’t want to get up from her seat, Rosa intentionally got arrested.
• Mary Fair Burks founded the Women’s Political Council.
• Jo Ann Robinson- Led the WPC, had a problem with how the Montgomery city bus operated.


  Montgomery buses would make black people pay at he front of the bus, get off and get back on through the back of the bus, but most of the time they would just drive off.
• 1953- Bus boycott in Baton Rouge and it worked. It worked because the boycotters would carpool everywhere instead of take the bus or walk. Gave Jo Ann the idea of a bus boycott in Montgomery.
• Claudette Colvin- 16 year old member of the Women’s Political Youth Council, one of the many girls who was arrested because of not getting up on a white bus. NAACP gets involved and Rosa Parks gets her out of jail.
• Claudette Colvin does not become the face of the boycott because she was a pregnant teenager and she was of a darker complexion and had 4C hair.
• Emmett Till’s death changed things and the NAACP and WPC decide to collaborate and plan for Rosa to get arrested intentionally because she is older, light-skinned, and would influence the people more easily.


  They chose a bus driver who had a reputation for calling the police on people who refused to get up, their plan worked.
• When Rosa gets arrested, Jo Ann tells every black person in Montgomery to boycott the buses and meet in a church later that night.
• Montgomery Improvement Association- founded for more support in the boycott, leader was Martin Luther King. Mostly handling negotiations with the city, NAACP is handling the cases of the women who were arrested.
• Browder v. Gayle, 1956- the one of the first bus court cases to be heard dealing with bus segregation, ruled that all city buses should be desegregated, not all interstate buses. Takes Dr. King a while to negotiate this desegregation agreement, ended the bus boycott after 381 days.
• White Citizens Council: A group of rich, suburban white southerners who opposed the civil rights movement.

  KKK: Re-emerges in the south, more violent than the WCC.
• Almost immediately after the desegregation of buses happens, Dr. King’s house gets shot up, several black teens are shot and attacked, and many black churches are bombed by the KKK.

  Rosa Parks ends up leaving Montgomery because of the violence and threats.

  MIA disbands.
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)- founded and led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Started King’s non-violent campaign to end segregation in the south.