The Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 primary aim was force the bus companies to desegregate their busses. They did this by displaying the economic power of the black population. They did this by walking or carpooling to their destination instead of paying for the bus. The boycott lasted a whole year, which was a massive achievement in itself due to the high level of logistical planning needed to avoid using the bus services daily, and by the end it could be said that they accomplished their goal as nearly all black people managed to live without the bus meaning that the bus companies lost 65% of their income. Due to this the boycott drew much media attention witch was important as it broadcast their cause to a wide audience. However no laws were…
In the article "The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Fall of the Montgomery City Lines," written by Felicia McGhee, McGhee writes the life of the racial segregation of the bus system and the effect of the boycott. On December 1, 1955, forty-two years old Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man after a long day of work. When the bus driver asked her and three other blacks to move to the back, Parks refused giving an explanation to why she said, "My feet were not tired but I was tired-tired of unfair treatment." (McGhee 254). Her actions violated the bus segregation laws and she was subsequently arrested for disorderly conduct. In the year before Rosa Park's arrest, two teenagers, Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith were also arrested for similar actions (McGhee 253). Blacks were outraged by the arrest of yet another black women on a city bus. Provoked by Park's arrest, the Montgomery's black residents initiated a 381-day boycott of the bus system. The boycott was disastrous for the Montgomery City Lines, costing the company $750,000. The residents were "boycotting a system of oppression, segregation, prescribed by the State of Alabama and the Montgomery City Council" (McGhee 252). The boycott ended on December 20, 1956 only ended after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the city’s segregated bus system was unconstitutional (McGhee 252). This ties to Camus standards of the moment of rebellion is when the rebel "finds his voice" and feels that enough is enough, the rebel will stand up for himself/herself (14). The Montgomery black residents were tired of the unfair treatment of the bus segregation laws that they decided to stand up for themselves, they organized a boycott and in the end, they were able to succeed and end the bus segregation laws. But the Montgomery Bus Boycott also meets Clark et al…
The organizer of the boycott is a fairly popular minister in southern United States at the time, he is known as Martin Luther King Jr. and his colleague Ralph Abernathy. The organizers called for all African Americans to no ride the city busses until further notice. According to Felicia Mcghee’s article The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Fall of the Montgomery City Lines, bus service was a core method of transportation for Montgomery’s black residents, as about half of the city’s 44,000 black residents regularly paid to use the service. Many blacks lived on Montgomery’s west side and would take the buses to the courtyard square in downtown Montgomery, then transfer buses to get to the city’s eastside. Many black domestic workers used buses to get to and from the white homes where they worked. So to get around town to get to their normal daily functions such as going to work/school, and other things they needed to get done many African Americans would walk, carpool, and take taxis. African Americans created taxi services that ran the same exact routes as the public transit and charged the same amount as they would pay to ride the…
The Montgomery bus boycott was an event in time where blacks were supposed to sit in the back and if a white person told you to stand up you and move so they…
On December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in a Montgomery bus and got arrested. People were so outraged that they started a bus boycott four days later. The boycott lasted 381 days. You got to admit, that did take guts to start a bus boycott and when the busses was the way you got around.…
The Rosa Parks’ arrest sparked a massive boycott against the bus system. At the time of the Rosa Parks’ arrest buses were segregated. This meant that black’s had to sit in the back of buses and whites got to sit in the front. The boycott was a non-violent protest led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. During the boycott nobody was killed nor injured during the boycott. The boycott hurt the bus system big time. The reason why was because most of their business came the black community.…
After the arrest of Rosa Parks, black people of Montgomery and sympathizers of other races organized and promoted a boycott of the city bus line that lasted 381 days. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was appointed the spokesperson for the Bus Boycott and taught nonviolence to all participants. (Rosa parks, 2007)Although…
The boycott was lead by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and lasted for over a year. During that year, many black people lost their jobs, many black people were arrested for violating laws about boycotts, and many homes and churches were destroyed. The boycott ended when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled bus segregation, unconstitutional, on December 20th, 1956. According to biography.com, the Montgomery bus boycott was one of the largest and most successful mass movements against racial segregation in…
On December 1, 1955, the NAACP member boarded a public bus and took a seat in the “Negro” section in the back of the bus. Later, Parks refused to relinquish her seat to a white passenger, defying the law by which blacks were required to give up their seats to white passengers when the front section, reserved for whites, was filled (Polsgrove, 2001). Parks was immediately arrested. In protest, the black community launched a one-day local boycott of Montgomery’s public bus system. As support for Parks began, the NAACP and other leaders took advantage of the opportunity to draw attention to their cause. They enlisted the help of a relatively unknown preacher, Martin Luther King Jr., to organize and lead a massive resistance movement that would challenge Montgomery’s racist laws (Kohl, 2005). Four days after Parks’ arrest, the citywide Montgomery bus boycott began (Kohl, 2005). It lasted for more than a year. Despite taunting and other forms of harassment from the white community, the boycotters persevered until the federal courts intervened and desegregated the buses on December 21, 1956 (Kohl,…
The protest united a vast group of African Americans who were passionate in combating racial discrimination and inequality. In fact, the demonstration was one of the first large scale ones, and as mentioned in a letter by Virginia Durr, it was “the first time that a whole [black] community [had] ever stuck together this way and for so long” (Document D). In addition, the larger assistance aided in lessening the consequences of not taking the buses. 42,000 African Americans did not use the public transport for two months but found alternatives and help from the drivers willing to carpool (Document C). What was vital in making the Montgomery Bus Boycott successful was it being a peaceful demonstration. From the start, the boycott urged participating African Americans to not resort to any act of violence. As said by Martin Luther King, Jr., “democracy [gave them the] right to [peacefully] protest” and even though they would inevitably face trials, they must endure and remain determined (Document…
A group named the Montgomery Improvement Association, composed of local activists and ministers, organized the boycott. As their leader, they chose a young Baptist minister who was new to Montgomery: Martin Luther King, Jr. Sparked by Mrs. Parks’ action, the boycott lasted 381 days, into December 1956 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the segregation law was unconstitutional and the Montgomery buses were integrated. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was the beginning of a revolutionary era of non-violent mass protests in support of civil rights in the United States.…
The boycott began on the 1st December 1955 with Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama, with Rosa Parks. She refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man on demand. She was arrested and imprisoned for violating the law. This was the beginning of the campaign of non-violence. In protest to Parks' arrest, the African American community, who comprised 75% of bus users in Montgomery, began…
To be more specific the Montgomery Bus Boycott. African Americans did not ride buses as a protest. Buses made most of their money from African American riders. Blacks had many dislikes about how they were treated on the buses. There was a designated section on the bus for African Americans. Blacks would have to sit at the back of the bus. If the section for white people was full then the bus driver would make people sitting in the black section move further back on the bus. The bus driver would also make blacks stand up on the bus so a white person can…
Computer Number: 19 Period 3 Montgomery Bus Boycott On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested because she refused to give up her seat to a white man. It was unlikely that she realized the force she had set into motion and the controversy that would soon swirl around her. “I didn’t get on the bus with the intention of being arrested,” she said. Earlier that year in March 2, 1955, a 15-year old girl Claudette Colvin was the first person arrested for resisting bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama.…
There were several factors which caused the ‘Montgomery Bus’ boycott. Many of the civil rights battles blacks had to fight were due to the case ‘Plessy vs. Ferguson’ in 1896. In this case a “separate but equal” standard was set down. This meant that segregation between blacks and whites could be enforced, but the segregation had to be equal between the races. From this case the ‘Jim Crow’ laws were established. This system of laws and customs enforced racial segregation and discrimination throughout the United States, from the late 19th century through to the 1960s. These laws were applied everywhere; segregation on buses was one of the places. This is a main cause for the ‘Montgomery Bus’ boycott as without Plessy vs. Ferguson segregation wouldn’t have been enforced on buses and therefore there would have been no boycott.…