freedom walkers the story of the montgomery bus boycott

The MIA elected as their president a new but charismatic preacher, Martin Luther King Jr. Over 70% of the cities bus patrons were African American and the one-day boycott was 90% effective. Nixon, a local labor leader, organized a December 4 meeting at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where local black leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA)to spearhead a boycott and negotiate with the bus company. By December 2, schoolteacher Jo Ann Robinson had mimeographed and delivered 50,000 protest leaflets around town. Montgomery's black citizens reacted decisively to the incident. Parks refused to surrender her seat and was arrested for violating the bus driver’s orders. The driver demanded that Parks give up her seat on the bus so a white passenger could sit down. After a few stops on Parks’ ride home, the white seating section of the bus became full. There was very little African Americans could do to stop the practice because bus drivers in Montgomery had the legal ability to arrest passengers for refusing to obey their orders. After shopping, Parks entered the less crowded Cleveland Avenue bus and was able to find an open seat in the 'colored' section of the bus for her ride home.ĭespite having segregated seating arrangements on public buses, it was routine in Montgomery for bus drivers to force African Americans out of their seats for a white passenger. Knowing that she would not be able to sit, Parks went to a local drugstore to buy an electric heating pad.

Nine months later, Rosa Parks - a 42-year-old seamstress and NAACP member- wanted a guaranteed seat on the bus for her ride home after working as a seamstress in a Montgomery department store. On March 2, 1955, a black teenager named Claudette Colvin dared to defy bus segregation laws and was forcibly removed from another Montgomery bus. When the driver ordered him off the bus, Johns urged other passengers to join him.

Years before the boycott, Dexter Avenue minister Vernon Johns sat down in the 'whites-only' section of a city bus.

Freedom walkers the story of the montgomery bus boycott