Commonly, Rosa Park’s arrests for refusing to yield her seat on a bus for a White man is a popular misconception of being the primary stimulant that kindled the uproar of the historical boycott of Montgomery’s buses known today. Contrarily, unprecedented, racially provoked violence, and discriminative and segregated events prior to Parks’ conviction motivated leaders to organize their communities for the challenge to break barriers of government’s disregards to Negro’s rights and race equality. Parks was the catalyst that spread to the community for the immediate need for change. Despite, Negroes limited sources, and assumptions they were impressionable and unintelligent; nevertheless, their stance made an economical impact to public transportation, crippled businesses’ revenue, and pressured the government to arbitrate laws against segregation. Within the short period of Parks’ arrest, Negroes were able to brainstorm various strategies that led to the success of the boycott, which included but not limited to the following: proper marketing, assertive leaders, and implementing a civil plan.
First, leaders and followers strategically implemented proper marketing techniques within the short time allotted. Jo Ann Gibson Robinson was an influential frontrunner in spreading the word to thousands of Montgomery constituents. Approximately, ten of thousands of leaflets were distributed in less than 24-hours. Robinson’s campaign calling technique to Women’s Political Council (WPC) members was to “alert all of them to the forthcoming distribution of the leaflets, and enlisted their aid in speeding and organizing the distribution network. Each would have one person waiting at a certain place to take a package of notices as so as her car st...
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...ronger than any obstacle that tried to deter them. As a result, Montgomery's buses were integrated on December 21, 1956, and the boycott ended. It had lasted 381 days. Nevertheless, proper marketing, assertive leaders, and implementing a civil plan were the key elements to the success of the justice that followed for Negroes.
Works Cited
Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, and David J. Garrow, The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987), 46.
“Montgomery Bus Boycott,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/topics/montgomery-bus-boycott (accessed November 29, 2013).
Ibid.
Wineburg, Samuel S., and Daisy Martin. Reading like a historian: teaching literacy in middle and high school history classrooms. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 2013.
The black people of Montgomery decided that the best way to show their anger at what had happened and how they were being treated would be by boycott, not use, the local bus service. One the first day of the boycott the buses were almost empty. The black community worked together and arranged another forms of transport such as car pool, or waling. Black taxi companies only charged back passengers the price of the bus fair and some white people who could do without their servants even when to pick them up form their homes. During the boycott the bus company lost 65% of their earnings. This showed people who powerful non-violent protest could be, by challenging black segregation laws without committing a crime. It also showed the black people how powerful they could be if they worked together.
On the date May 26, 1956, two female students from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Patterson, had taken a seat down in the whites only section of a segregated bus in the city of Tallahassee, Florida. When these women refused to move to the colored section at the very back of the bus, the driver had decided to pull over into a service station and call the police on them. Tallahassee police arrested them and charged them with the accusation of them placing themselves in a position to incite a riot. In the days after that immediately followed these arrests, students at the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University organized a huge campus-wide boycott of all of the city buses. Their inspiring stand against segregation set an example and an intriguing idea that had spread to tons of Tallahassee citizens who were thinking the same things and brought a change of these segregating ways into action. Soon, news of the this boycott spread throughout the whole entire community rapidly. Reverend C.K. Steele composed the formation of an organization known as the Inter-Civic Council (ICC) to manage the logic and other events happening behind the boycott. C.K. Steele and the other leaders created the ICC because of the unfounded negative publicity surrounding the National Associat...
This source is an excellent source. It is an extract from the biography of Rosa Parks. It is a primary source, therefore it is reliable. It is about Rosa Parks, who was physically part of the boycott. It is very accurate and reliable, because it states exactly what happened to her when she refused to move for a white male. It also clearly shows how the Montgomery Bus Boycott started and what an impact it had on the segregation laws.
Parks, the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56 was actually a collective response to decades of intimidation, harassment and discrimination of Alabama's African American population. By 1955, judicial decisions were still the principal means of struggle for civil rights, even though picketing, marches and boycotts sometimes punctuated the litigation. The boycott, which lasted for more than a year, was almost 100 percent effective.
(3) Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955): After the supreme court decided to end segregation, African Americans started to speak out more about their racial opinions. In Montgomery, Alabama, a bus boycott ended with a victory for the African Americans. The Supreme Court ruled that the Alabama segregation laws were unconstitutional. During the boycott a young African American Baptist minister, Martin Luther King, Jr. became well known. Throughout the long contest he advised African Americans to avoid violence no matter had badly provoked by whites. Rosa Parks tired of sitting in the back of the bus, and giving up her seat to white men. One weary day she refused to move from the front of the bus, and she became one of history's heroes in the Civil Rights Act movement.
On December 5, 1955, thousands of African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama walked, carpooled, or hitchhiked to work in an act of rebellion against segregation on buses. This bus boycott was not the first of its kind – black citizens of Baton-Rouge, Louisiana had implemented the same two years prior – but the bus boycott in Montgomery was a critical battle of the Civil Rights Movement. Though the original intent of the boycott was to economically cripple the bus system until local politicians agreed to integrate the city’s buses, the Montgomery Bus Boycott impacted the fabric of society in a much deeper way. Instead of only changing the symptoms of a much larger problem, this yearlong protest was the first step in transforming the way all Americans perceived freedom and equality. Though the boycott ended when the Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional, this was not directly caused by the refusal to ride buses, and thus cannot be defined as the primary triumph of the boycott. Instead, the Montgomery Bus Boycott succeeded in changing the consciousness of millions of Americans, specifically southern blacks. A revolution of the mind was the greatest success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and this transformation occurred due to the small validations throughout the boycott that African Americans, as unified, free citizens, had power.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott took a stand in history by disagreeing to rule by Jim Crow laws, boycotting the racist rules and persisting in doing so. During this time, blacks were separated from whites because of their race. Blacks had to sit in the back of the bus at all times, even if there was room at the front. On December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks rode bus number 2857 in Montgomery, Alabama,(“Montgomery Bus Boycott,” History.com) On this day, she changed the course of history by refusing her seat to a white man. Rosa Parks had come back from a long day at work and didn't feel like moving to the back of the bus when the bus driver James F. Blake asked her to move to the back of the colored section, (“Montgomery Bus
In Martin Luther King Jr’s book, Stride Towards Freedom, he sums up the whole boycott very nicely. “The Story of Montgomery us the story of 50,00 Negroes who were willing to substitute tired feet for tired souls and walk the streets of Montgomery until the walls of segregation were finally battered by the forces of justice.”5
The event followed a case where Rosa Park was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man in a bus. The transport company services had a policy of segregation where black people were to stand for their white colleagues. If the former failed to do so, then they were immediately arrested. It showed that whites were so superior to blacks that they were to have total comfort even if it meant having it at the latter’s expense. The policy was a clear showing of white superiority. However, Mrs. Park’s defiance and the subsequent boycott was a reminder to the masses that skin color does not represent evolution. The bus company soon realized this, and it scrapped the segregation policy (Booke). It was the beginning of the realization that skin color did not represent superiority. In the end, this discernment dawned on the whole nation, and Jim Crow’s laws were repealed across the
On December 1st, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the front of a bus to a white man. It was this simple act of defiance that, arguably, began the Civil Rights movement which lasted from 1955 through the 1960’s and altered the face of our nation forever. Following the arrest of Rosa Parks for her simple denial, African Americans in Montgomery began boycotting the bus system, one of the first major stands against racism in the 1950’s. On the heels of the Brown v. Board of Education segregation trial which had ruled in favor of school integration, this boycott, which proved successful after the seat separation was removed, effectively began the civil rights movement with which we are now so familiar with. The civil rights movement in America aimed to gain civil liberties and rights which were guaranteed by law but withheld from them in society. While the movement lasted from about 1954 to 1968, it was not until the 1960’s that other minorities such as American Indians and women began to join the fight. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s was possibly the most important domestic social movement of the twentieth century. At the very least, it was the most important social confrontation to grip America since the Civil War.
Rosa Parks was a member of the NAACP, lived in Montgomery Alabama, and rode the public bus system. In the south, during this time the buses were segregated which meant that black people had to ride in the back of the bus behind a painted line. White people entered the front of the bus and were compelled to sit in front of the painted line. Most buses at the time had more room for white riders who used the service less than the black ridership. Yet, they could not cross the line even if the seats in the front were empty (Brown-Rose, 2008). Rosa Parks made a bold statement when she sat in the “white section” of a Montgomery bus. She was asked to surrender her seat to a white man, but she did not move and was soon arrested. Her brave action started the Montgomery bus Boycott, with the help of the NAACP, none other than Dr. Martin Luther King’s leadership as part of the Montgomery Improvement Association. As its President, he was able spread the word quickly which brought national attention to the small town of Montgomery’s bus Boycott. The boycott was televised and brought so much attention that the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public transportation was unconstitutional; a success spurring a more
One of the first and most known events of the Civil Rights Movement was the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the United States (Montgomer...
During the Civil Rights movement of the 1950's and 60's, women played an undeniably significant role in forging the path against discrimination and oppression. Rosa Parks and Jo Ann Robinson were individual women whose efforts deserve recognition for instigating and coordinating the Montgomery Bus Boycotts of 1955 that would lay precedent for years to come that all people deserved equal treatment despite the color of their skin. The WPC, NAACP, and the Montgomery Churches provided the channels to organize the black public into a group that could not be ignored as well supported the black community throughout the difficult time of the boycott.
...ivil rights in America, galvanized by the landmark Brown vs. Board of Educa2tion of Topeka decision of 1954.” The Montgomery bus boycott happened on “December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks... who refused to give up her sear to a white passenger on a bus” she was arrested. Later, the Supreme Court ruled “segregated seating on public buses unconstitutional in November 1956.”
Robinson, Jo Ann Gibson, and David J. Garrow. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: the Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson. Knoxville: University of Tennessee, 1987. Print.