The Montgomery Bus Boycott (After 60 Years)

More than 60 Years have passed since the Montgomery Bus Boycott. We learn lessons from that
event and we will continue to fight for the freedom of black people and of the rest of the human
race. Black people in Montgomery, Alabama democratically decided that they would boycott the
city buses until they were allowed to seat any location in any city buses that they desire. Alabama
back then was filled with segregation or Jim Crow apartheid. Black people, who rode segregated
buses, experienced violence, theft of their payment to the buses, unfair seating arrangements,
verbal disrespect, and other forms of mistreatment. Black people have had enough and that is why
black people organized the Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks was a hero was a leader in the movement. Yet,
we have to acknowledge other black people who opposed injustice long before the boycott existed.
In 1945, a black woman named Geneva Johnson just opposed injustice and she was arrested from
the public transit bus in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1949, the black professor Jo Ann Robinson sat in
the front of the bus and the bus driver screamed at her for doing so.
Black women like Viola White, Claudette Colvin (who was a 15 year old high school student at the
time refused to give up her bus seat to a white woman nine months before Rosa Parks did it), Katie
Wingfield, and other Sisters were arrested for challenged the white racist power structure involving
segregated public bus lines and refusal to vacate seating reserved of white passengers. It was the
federal court suit involving Colvin that eventually led to a Supreme Court order outlawing
segregated buses. Epsie Worthy in 1953 was robbed of her transfer fee on the bus. Later, the bus
driver assaulted her unjustly. Epsie used self-defense to defend herself and she was arrested. She
had to pay a 52 dollar fine and spent time in jail. During the 1950s, Pastor Vernon Johns (one of the
greatest civil rights leaders in history) was forced to give up his seat to a white man. He later tried

to get other black people to leave the bus in protest. In September 1, 1954, Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The boycott lasted for 381 days and it ended on November of 1956. Tuskegee and Montgomery
attorney Fred Gray said that without Claudette Colvin, there may well be able to have never been a
Rosa Parks being involved in the boycott. Thousands of working people and the poor walked up to
20 miles daily in order for them to fight for the human rights and basic democratic freedoms. To
this very day, we are still fighting for decent jobs, adequate housing, universal health care, and
strong education.
In March 2, 1955, 15 year old Claudette Colvin was arrested for refusing to get up from her seat. In
October 21, 1955, 18 year old Mary Louise Smith was arrested. Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee,
Alabama in 1913. He grew up in a world where the lynchings of black people were very common
place. Brutal terror, discrimination, and economic exploitation occurred against black people in the
Deep South and all over America. Rosa Parks and her husband were active in the Montgomery
chapter of the NAACP during the 1930s. She raised funds for the defense of the Scottsboro Boys.
They were nine black teenagers who were framed for rape in 1931. Their experiences caused an
international defense campaign. Back in 1943, Rosa Park was thrown off the bus for challenging
the discriminatory treatment of black people being forced to sit in the back of the bus. Some
months before her arrest, Mrs. Parks had attended a leadership conference at the Highlander Folk
School in Tennessee, an interracial organization that was redbaited during this period as run by
Communist sympathizers, which was a lie. Rosa Parks later said that at Highlander she gained
strength to persevere in my work for freedom, not just for blacks but for all oppressed peoples.
Rosa Parks (who was a social activist long before the 1950s) was arrested too since she refused to
get up from a seat. In 1955, Rosa Parks was 42 years old.

Rosa Parks was arrested in December 1, 1955. The boycott lasted for 13 months. The Womens
Political Council of the WPC was created in 1946 to fight Jim Crow oppression on Montgomery city
buses. They met with Mayor W. A. Gayle in March of 1954 to fight for justice. WPC President was Jo
Ann Robinson. Rosa Parks (who was bailed out of jail by E.D. Nixon, Clifford Durr, and Virginia Durr)
and others were involved in the boycott. Black women led the movement too. Many black women
were laborers, teachers, nurses, etc. They relied on the buses heavily to travel to and from work.
The white population in Montgomery heavily relied on black people too economically. So, the bus
boycott revolved involved heavily on the collaboration between the black poor, the black working
class, and the black middle class in order for them to work together. In that sense, the boycott
would be successful. Black people formed taxi services to get black workers to and from work
during the bus boycott. Rosa Parks and E.D. Nixon worked together in the boycott. Nixon was a
black trade unionist in Montgomery. He was the local branch head of the sleeping car porters
union. He fought for voting rights and civil rights for years. E.D. Nixon was the past NAACP leader of
the Montgomery chapter. The new minister Dr. Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy (both
preachers) worked in the boycott movement too. Many of the plans and actions of the boycott
were organized in churches like Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and especially at the Holt Street
Baptist Church. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought against the conservative elements in the NAACP
and other organizations, and he was a Baptist religious pacifist. He wanted to appeal for justice
from the capitalist state. As time went on in his life, he realized that incremental change (which
leads into reformism being submissive to the Democratic Party) wasnt enough and revolutionary
change was necessary for black people to have equality and justice. By the later 1960s, Dr. Martin
Luther King, partly in response to the growing internal crisis, called for a refocused struggle against
poverty and inequality, pointing toward the necessity of a program to unite the working class. He

also courageously defied official pressure and the rest of the civil rights establishment in
denouncing the US war in Vietnam, but was assassinated shortly afterward, in April 1968.

This was when the then 26 year old Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the first Montgomery
Improvement Association. He and others organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott Holt Street
Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama on December 5, 1955.
The Montgomery Improvement Association was one leading group in the movement. Dr. King was
elected President of the MIA in December 5. He was elected President since Dr. King was new and
he wasnt in Montgomery long enough to have strong friends or enemies according to Rosa Parks.
Tuskegee and Montgomery attorney Fred Gray represented Colvin days following her arrest and
Parks in the boycott case. Also, Claudette Colvin was a social activist too. She was part of the Youth
Council in the NAACP. E.D. Nixon was a strong organizer of the Bus Boycott. During the 1920s and
the 1930s, Nixon worked with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (which advanced union
rights and racial justice). This labor organization of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was led
by A. Philip Randolph and this group wanted to organize workers into that union. Also, Rosa Parks
didnt rule out the righteous use of force. Rosa Parks admired Malcolm X and spoke in the funeral of
Robert F. Williams, who supported armed self-defense by the black community.
The boycott caused 90 percent of Montgomerys black citizens to not ride public buses. The
demands (which were moderate) of the MIA were rejected by the white establishment, so the
boycott continued well into 1956. A carpool service existed on the advice of T.J. Jemison (who
organized a carpool during the 1953 bus boycott in Baton Rouge). The MIA carpool had about 300
cars. Early meetings between city officials and the MIA caused no real agreement (which was
organized by Robert Hughes and others of the Alabama Council for Human Relations). In early 1956,
the homes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and E.D. Nixon were bombed. Dr. Kings house was bombed
in January 30, 1956. Dr. King claimed the crowd, while some of whom wanted violent retaliation, by
saying: Be calm as I and my family are. We are not hurt and remember that if anything happens
to me, there will be others to take my place. After his speech, the crowd went home and no
violence (in retaliation to Dr. King's home being bombed) happened that night. On February 1,
1956, Fred D. Gray and Charles D. Langford filed the Browder v. Gayle lawsuit on behalf of four
female plaintiffs to challenge the constitutionality of city and state bus segregation laws. On that
date, the home of E.D. Nixon was bombed. No one is injured. By February of 1956, the city used an
injunction against the boycott. Over 80 boycott leaders were indicted. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was
tired and convicted on the charge (of promoting conspiracies that interfered with lawful business

which can from a 1921 law). A National Deliverance Day of Prayer (on March 28, 1956) to support
the bus boycott takes place, with several cities outside the South taking part.

Women such as Robinson, Johnnie Carr, and Irene West sustained the MIA committees and
volunteer networks. Mary Fair Burks of the WPC also attributed the success of the boycott to the
nameless cooks and maids who walked endless miles for a year to bring about the breach in the
walls of segregation (Burks, Trailblazers, 82). Bayard Rustin and Blenn E. Smiley gave Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. advice on nonviolence, especially on Gandhian techniques. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
once had a gun in his house and armed bodyguards with him. Rustin convinced Dr. Kin to get rid of
the guns in his home and embrace nonviolent tactics 100 percent. Rustin, Ella Baker, and Stanley
Levison (he was an adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) founded In Friendship to raise funds in the
North for southern civil rights efforts, including the bus boycott. The MIA was supported nationwide
and worldwide. More media coverage came about to describe the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In
June 18, 1956, Rev. U. J. Fields apologized to the MIA in a mass meeting for making the accusation
that MIA leaders were misusing funds.

Martin Luther King stated at a meeting, in San Francisco, Ca on June 27,1956, to gather support for
the Boycott:
With this new self-respect, this new sense of dignity on the part of the Negro, the Souths negative
peace was gradually undermined. The tension which we witness in the southland today can be
explained by the revolutionary change in the Negros evaluation of his nature and destiny, by his
determination to stand up and struggle until the walls of injustice have crumbled. [applause] The
Negro [figures its?] clear insanity, that feeling that he is inferior, everything would be all right down
in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. But the Negro rightly feels that he is somebody
now [applause] [words inaudible]
That is at bottom the meaning of what is happening in Montgomery. You can never understand
the Montgomery story without understanding that there is a brand new Negro in the South, with a
new sense of dignity and destiny. [applause] There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose
time has come

Sister Johnnie Carr was one of the greatest advocates of freedom in America. She was active in the
Montgomery Bus Boycott. One of Carr's classmate was Rosa McCauley, later known to the world
as Rosa Parks. Both Carr and her husband were present at the mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist
Church on December 5, after Park's arrest, when it was determined that the boycott would
continue. Both Carrs participated in the boycott by transporting workers. Carr became president
of the Montgomery Improvement Association (an organization founded during the bus boycott)
in 1967, remaining in the position until her death. She also was an active member of the United
Way and a member of One Montgomery, an organization formed in 1984 to improve race relations
in the city. She was a friend to Virginia Durr too. Sister Johnnie Carr passed away in February 22,
2008.

Georgia Gilmore, midwife and cook in Montgomery, Alabama, was prominently involved in the
1955 citywide bus boycotts inspired by Rosa Parks. Known for her meals, she started her own
home-based restaurant and established The Club From Nowhere, selling fresh baked goods and the
proceeds went to the MIA (Montgomery Improvement Association.) The club name allowed them
to earn money for the movement without raising the suspicion of white officials and members of
the Klan. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King at the Montgomery, Alabama courthouse
where Dr. King was tried for leading the bus boycott that brought national attention to the Civil
Rights Movement.

On June 5, 1956, the federal district court ruled in Browder v. Gayle that bus segregation was
unconstitutional. In November 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed Browder v. Gayle and struck
down laws requiring segregated seating on public buses. The courts decision came the same day
that King and the MIA were in circuit court challenging an injunction against the MIA carpools.
Later, the MIA waited until the order to desegregate the buses came to Montgomery. The Supreme
Court upheld the lower courts ruling. So, on December 20, 1956, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called
an end to the boycott. The community of Montgomery, Alabama agreed. The next day, Dr. King,
Ralph Abernathy, Ed. D Nixon, and Glenn Smiley boarded an integrated bus. King said of the bus
boycott: We came to see that, in the long run, it is more honorable to walk in dignity than ride in
humiliation. Sowe decided to substitute tired feet for tired souls, and walk the streets of
Montgomery (Papers 3:486). Violence continued against black people. In December 23, 1956,
someone fires a gun shoot into Dr. Kings home. The next day, 5 cowardly white men attacked a 15
year old black girl at a Montgomery bus stop. Rosa Jordan was shot in both legs in December 26,
1956. On January 10, 1957, four churches and two homes are bombed: Bell Street Baptist,
Hutchinson Street Baptist, First Baptist and Mount Olive Baptist, plus the homes of the Revs. Robert
Graetz and Ralph Abernathy. An unexploded bomb is found on the porch of Kings parsonage. So,
white racist terrorism was common then and now.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott represented a new era of the civil rights movement and it was the
beginning of the end of the evil of legalized Jim Crow apartheid. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was
the blueprint of not just opposing segregation in the South, but opposition to any injustice in
general.

By Timothy

The construction of the World Trade Center has a long history. The Twin Towers was
created as a product of a urban renewal project and it was spearheaded by David
Rockefeller. David Rockefeller and other wanted to revitalize Lower Manhattan. The
project was planned explicitly by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. They
hired architect Minoru Yamasaki, who was an American architect, to create plans for
building the structure. On September 20, 1962, the Port Authority announced the selection
of Minoru Yamasaki as lead architect and Emery Roth & Sonsas associate architects. Yamasaki's
original plan called for the towers to be 80 stories tall, but to meet the Port Authority's requirement
for 10,000,000 square feet (930,000 m2) of office space, the buildings would each have to be 110
stories tall. Yamasaki came up with the idea of building twin towers. There was many

extensive negotiations. The New Jersey and New York State government, which
supervised the Port Authority, agreed to the construction of the World Trade Center at
the Radio Row site. That site was located in the lower west area of Manhattan. To
satisfy the New Jersey government, the Port Authority agreed to buy the bankrupt
Hudson & Manhattan Railroad (renamed to Port Authority Trans-Hudson), which
transported commuters from New Jersey to Lower Manhtattan. The towers were designed
as framed tube structures, giving tenants open floor plans, unobstructed by columns or
walls.[16][17] This design was accomplished by using many closely spaced perimeter columns,
providing much of structure's strength, with the gravity load shared with the core columns.
The elevator system, which made use of sky lobbies and a system of express and local elevators,
allowed substantial floor space to be used for office purposes by making the structural core smaller.
The design and construction of the towers involved many other innovative techniques, such as wind
tunnel experiments and the slurry wall for digging the foundation. The construction of the North
Tower began in 1966. World Trade Center One was completed by December 23, 1970. When
completed in 1973, the South Tower, Two World Trade Center (the South Tower) became the
second tallest building in the world at 1,362 feet (415 m); the South Tower's rooftop observation
deck was 1,362 ft (415 m) high and its indoor observation deck was 1,310 ft (400 m) high.[93] Each
tower stood over 1,350 feet (410 m) high, and occupied about 1 acre (4,000 m2) of the total 16 acres
(65,000 m2) of the site's land. World Trade Center 2 was completed in July 19, 1971. The complex of
WTC 4, 5, and 6 was completed in 1975. WTC 3 was finished in July 1981. World Trade Center
Number Seven was completed in 1987. The opening of the original World Trade Center came about
in April 4, 1973.
@Sister Courtney H

I have looked at the video too about the killer Peter Liang. We all are outraged at this injustice. We
have suffered so many injustices as a people that it is shame that we celebrate in the rare time when
a crooked receives true justice. Harvey is right that black people have served prison time for mere

possession of drugs while Liang receives probation for killing an unarmed black man. The Black DA
from MYC should be ashamed of himself for advocating such an anemic sentence. Liang deserves
prison time. Many in the Asian community protesting for Liang to receive such a lax sentences
shows how black solidarity is important. At the end of the day, the only people who can save us is
us. Aki Gurley was only 28 years old with his whole life ahead of him. The 2 police officers delayed
for nearly 20 minutes while a black man was bleeding to death. The victims girlfriend called an
ambulance using a neighbors cellphone. Gurley was a father of 2 young girls. The police occupying
housing complexes in New York Citys working class neighborhoods have been going on for years
and decades. Harvey is right to express complete outrage at such a decision. The law in America
centuries ago was used to enslave our black ancestors. We were called 3/5s of a human. Today, the
law is being used to occupy our communities, expand unjust wars overseas, and prevent true
accountability from taking place. Real revolutionary change is necessary as our elders have
advocated for so long.
@Sharon53
I agree with you. Some of our people are so brainwashed that they love the status quo more than
they love their own black people. The black juror (who issued such an insensitive statement, which
disrespects Gurleys family) and the black DA are wrong for their actions and words. Black people
deserve better than this.

The Seven Years War was a war that was prelude to the Revolutionary War. It was one
of the first world wars in world history. It was fought between 1755 and 1764 and the
main conflict lasted from 1756 to 1763 (which was about seven years). The war was
fought in the Americas, West Africa, Europe, India, and in the Philippines. The war dealt
with the competition between Great Britain and France (among other European nations)
for the imperial control of many nations in the world. During the course of the War,
Great Britain allied with Prussia, Portugal, Hanover, Brunswick,-Wolfenbuttel, the
Iroquois Confederacy, and other nations. France allied with the Holy Roman Empire,
Austria, Saxony, Russia (until 1762), Spain (from 1762), many Native American tribes,
and the Mughal Empire (from 1757). In America, France controlled the Mississippi river
valley heavily with the construction of their own forts and trading positions. English
colonists wanted to travel in the region, especially in the Ohio Valley. By 1753, then 21
year old Major George Washington left Williamsburg, Virginia to the Ohio Valley.
Virginias governor Robert Dinwiddie has sent Washington to order the French to abandon the
string of forts they are building between Lake Erie and the Forks of the Ohio River (the
confluence of the Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny Rivers). Robert wanted Washington to
stop the French from preventing English settlements. Lt. Colonel Washington defeated a French
force near the Great Meadows in May 28, 1754. British attempts to halt this fort construction were
unsuccessful, and the French proceeded to build the fort they named Fort Duquesne. British colonial
militia from Virginia was then sent to drive them out. Led by George Washington, they ambushed a
small French force at Jumonville Glen on 28 May 1754 killing ten, including commander Jumonville.
Washington worked with his ally or Seneca chief Tanaghrisson to attack the French people
captured. The French commandeer was killed and the victims were scalped too. Later, a French
force of 700 attack George Washington and his 400 troops at Fort Necessity in retaliation for the

massacre of the French at the Great Meadows. Washington surrenders and leaves the Ohio
Valley. The Mohawks left the alliance with Britain and proclaimed neutrality. The first British
action was the assault on Acadia on 16 June 1755 in the Battle of Fort Beausjour,[8] which was
immediately followed by their expulsion of the Acadians. The major conflict started in 1756 when
both France and Britain declare war officially against each other. King Frederick II of Prussia
was a great ally of Britain and he gained many early victories in Germany and then as years
came about, he suffered defeats. The French captured Fort Oswego in the Great Lakes in
August 14, 1756. William Pitt was the secretary of State. He promotes sending resources to
defeat the French in America and in Europe. He will authorize the raising of 23,000 provincial
troops in North America in 1758, and will end squabbling over taxation by guaranteeing the
colonial assemblies that Parliament will cover all expenses. The huge defeat of the British in
1758 caused 2,000 casualties for the British. In the same year, the British captured the French
port on Nova Scotia called Louisbourg. This caused the British to restrict heavily the French
supply lines flowing down the Saint Lawrence River. General James Wolfe in 1759 attacks
Quebec and the French retreat to Montreal. Wolfe was killed in battle. The French (with
Governor General Vauderueil of New France) surrendered Montreal or the last French
stronghold in North America without firing a shot when a British army of 17,500 British regulars,
American provincial troops, and Indians converge on the city from three directions. While the
Iroquois allied with the British, the In Africa, Britain captured Gambia from the French. The
Treaty of Paris of 1763 was the beginning of the end of the War. Complex land exchanges were
the end result of the War. The Treaty allows Great Britain to get territories east of the
Mississippi River, Canada (except Saint Pierre and Miquelon), and the island of Grenada. The
Northern Circars go to Great Britain. Louisiana west of the Mississippi River goes to Spain.
Great Britain receives Florida from Spain. The war caused a huge financial burden on France
and Great Britain. Great Britain became the most powerful European nation in that time and
France decreased in power. Prussia also increased its power after the Treaty of Paris. The
British forced American colonists to pay the bills for the war via taxes and other policies. This
was part of the anger from the colonists (from the Thirteen Colonies) which would expand into
the Revolutionary War. So, the Seven Years War was one crucial factor in causing the
Revolutionary War.