Free
On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a crowded bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was going home after a hard day’s work.
As always, she sat in the back, where blacks had to sit. After a few stops, all the seats were taken. Then a white passenger got on board. The bus driver told Mrs. Parks and the others in her row to stand and let the white man sit. Rosa Parks refused. She was taken to the police station and booked. Then she was moved to the city jail. That evening, she was released on bond.
News of the arrest spread quickly. The city’s blacks decided to protest by staying off the buses. On Monday, almost all the city’s black bus riders found another way to get to work. The boycotters’ goal was simple: end segregation on city buses.
Montgomery’s black leaders wanted to keep the boycott going. So they founded the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). They elected 26-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. president. The MIA started car pools to help people get to work. They also held meetings to urge people to keep up the boycott.
▲ After Parks’s arrest and the start of the boycott, many whites got mad. People called King’s house with threats. Sometimes, he got 30 calls a night from people telling him to get out of town. But King had more to think about than himself. He had a new daughter, Yolanda.
During the boycott, police stopped black drivers for made up or minor reasons. Today this is called “racial profiling.” That’s when people are stopped because of their race. King himself was arrested for going 30 miles an hour in a 25-mile-an-hour zone. About a hundred people were arrested for breaking an old antiboycott law. ▶
◀ Mrs. King and Yolanda were at home on the evening of January 30, 1956, when a bomb went off on their front porch. Luckily, they were not hurt. King rushed home from his church. He quieted the crowd that had gathered in front of his house. He told them: “I want you to go home and put down your weapons. We must meet violence with nonviolence.... We must meet hate with love.”
▲ The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation on Alabama buses was unconstitutional. Regular bus service started again on December 21, 1956. King proudly stepped onto the first bus that morning.
“We came to see that, in the long run, it is more honorable to walk in dignity than to ride in humiliation.”
HOW PEOPLE GOT AROUND
◀ People found many ways to get around the city during the boycott. They walked or rode in taxis. They also joined car pools organized by the MIA. Others rode mules or hitchhiked. Some white employers drove blacks to work.
MONEY COUNTS
▲ The boycott hurt the bus company’s business. Three-fourths of all those who rode the buses were black. Without them, many buses had to be taken out of service. Some bus routes were shut down. Then the fare went from 10 to 15 cents. To stay in business, the bus company needed the black riders. The boycotters used the power of their dollars to force the company to meet their demands.
KING’S LIFELONG FRIEND
◀ Ralph Abernathy was minister of the First Baptist Church. He was 29 years old when the bus boycott began. He became King’s right-hand man in the fight for civil rights. They spent a lot of time in jail together. That’s because they peacefully protested unjust laws.
