#bus boycott

[blondebrainpowered]

On December 1, 1955, in violation of segregation laws in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger and was arrested, sparking a 381-day bus boycott led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

[writing-with-olive]

Something to keep in mind when figuring out organizing.

The people in the Civil Rights era didn't make gains because they held marches and sit-ins.

They made gains because they very publicly put economic strain on the Powers That Be in a way that those powers didn't have the infrastructure for absorbing the hit, while simultaneously caring for their own most vulnerable so that they would have the political willpower to hold the line until the powers were forced to concede.

I see a lot of people get angry that a march didn't work, because "we did the thing, why won't they back down now, they're supposed to back down!" And that's not how change actually happens. It's how it's taught, because if people believe that's how it happens, they won't cause problems to the status quo. But historical actions that worked, worked because they were multi-pronged, and hit key figures in the pocketbooks. If there is not economic pressure, those key figures will just sigh and wait it out, and let resistors burn themselves out. If oppression played fairly, there wouldn't be oppression. Not to mention that the infrastructure of power has changed in the last sixty years. Easy road is always mined, and all that.

if you want to emulate that history, look at the level of planning that went on behind those big movements and the weeks or months of prep-work, and emulate the style of the plan as adapted to your region rather than focusing on the flashy outcome.

It's about holding the line and choosing goals and methods based on strategy, not just because they look cool.

[bpgthoughts]

great film.. movie is about the bus boycotts during the civil rights movement and how one housewife got involved in it..

It is currently streaming on youtube and tubi free of charge.. a worthwhile watch. both actresses (Spacek & Goldberg) did amazing.

[writinghistorylit]

Claudette Colvin-Civil Rights Movement

On March 12, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat to a white woman during her bus ride.  She said, “”It’s my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. I paid my fare...”  She was pulled from the bus and handcuffed.  

Colvin was one of the first of several women who challenged bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama.  Her courage led to the idea of the eventual boycott known as the “Montgomery Bus Boycott”.

[jeanne-art]

Dan Weiner (American, 1919-1959), Martin Luther King Jr., wife Coretta Scott King and their daughter Yolanda, Bus Boycott, Montgomery, Alabama, April 1956

Vintage gelatin silver print, printed ca. 195613 3/8h x 8 5/8w in

[ithedondon20]

Ms. Georgia Gilmore was the "Kindhearted cook" of the civil rights movement. She would cook for MLK, as well as the black people who participated during the bus boycott. Her fund-raising effort selling food at boycott mass meetings. Her grass-roots activism helped to sustain the long boycott and inspired similar groups to begin raising money.

[joeinct]

WPC Bus Boycott, Mongomery, AL, Photo by Dan Weiner, 1956

By the 1950s the Women's Political Council (WPC) had become one of the most active civil rights organizations in Montgomery.  All three hundred of its members were registered to vote, which was a significant accomplishment for African American women at the time. The thirteen-month boycott was successful in desegregating Montgomery’s buses.

[truth-has-a-liberal-bias]

Before Rosa Parks, There Was Claudette Colvin

Few people know the story of Claudette Colvin: When she was 15, she refused to move to the back of the bus and give up her seat to a white person — nine months before Rosa Parks did the very same thing.

Most people know about Parks and the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott that began in 1955, but few know that there were a number of women who refused to give up their seats on the same bus system. Most of the women were quietly fined, and no one heard much more.

Colvin was the first to really challenge the law.

Now a 78-year-old retiree, Colvin lives in the Bronx. She remembers taking the bus home from high school on March 2, 1955, as clear as if it were yesterday.

The bus driver ordered her to get up and she refused, saying she'd paid her fare and it was her constitutional right. Two police officers put her in handcuffs and arrested her. Her school books went flying off her lap.

"All I remember is that I was not going to walk off the bus voluntarily," Colvin says. [...]