Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Lewis’ Biography, Chapter 3

Today we are reflecting on the chapter in David Levering Lewis’
biography of Martin Luther King on the Montgomery Bus
Boycott. We reflect on these questions:
Did Rosa Parks plan in advance to refuse to move to the back of
the bus, to make way for white passengers?
How did Martin Luther King gain national prominence in the
Montgomery Bus Boycott?
How did the leaders of the boycott respond to the violence and
bombings of their houses and churches?
Why was the country receptive to civil rights reforms at the time
of the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott?

Lewis prefaces this
chapter of his
biography of Martin
Luther King with a
quote from James
Weldon Johnson:
“Lift every voice and
sing till earth and
heaven ring, ring
with the harmony of
liberty.”

Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments. Let us learn and reflect together!
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used for this video.
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As a young minister graduating from a prestigious seminary,
Martin Luther King was honored by his calling to be the minister
of the renowned Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, a prestigious
colored church in Atlanta, Georgia in early 1954. But in
December 1955, during the busy Christmas season, an event
that would change both the course of his life and American
history occurred when a courageous, courteous and unassuming
black lady broke both the law and Southern etiquette by refusing
to give up her seat to a white passenger and move to the back of
the bus. The police were called, and they arrested Mrs Rosa
Parks.

The No.
2857 bus on
which Parks
was riding
before her
arrest,
Henry Ford
Museum.

The biographer David Levering
Lewis writes, “By her dignified
bearing during her arrest and
arraignment, and because of her
impeccable reputation in the black
community, Mrs Parks’ defiance
compelled the city to charge her
explicitly with the violation of the
municipal ordinance governing
racial accommodation on publicly
owned vehicles, and not, as was
usually the case, with the elastic
offense of disorderly conduct.”
Statue of Rosa Parks from Memphis Museum

Had this protest been planned? Previously Rosa
Parks had been employed as a secretary for the
NAACP, she was now employed as a seamstress. The
previous year the Supreme Court had handed down
the Brown v Board of Education decision, which
mandated the desegregation of public schools with
all deliberate speed. Also, that year the black
fourteen-year-old Emmitt Till was brutally tortured
and murdered by grown white men.

Emmitt Till in
his open casket
funeral. His
mother
wanted all to
see what was
done to him.

The NAACP and a multiplicity of black civil rights
organizations were challenging many of the Jim Crow
segregation laws. Three other black ladies had previously
defied the segregationist seats on the municipal buses.
The Woman’s Political Council, formed by civic-minded
black women when they were denied membership in the
white League of Women Voters, had already negotiated
with the local white businesses for the removal of
separate drinking fountains for blacks and whites, and
were strategizing a bus boycott.

Rosa Parks being
fingerprinted on February
22, 1956, by Lt DH Lackey
as one of the people
indicted as leaders of the
Montgomery bus boycott.
She was one of 73 people
rounded up by deputies
that day after a grand jury
charged 113 African
Americans for organizing
the boycott. This was a few
months after her arrest on
December 1, 1955, for
refusing to give up her seat
to a white passenger on a
segregated municipal bus
in Montgomery, Alabama.

Though her timing was, in hindsight, impeccable, this refusal of Rosa
Parks to relinquish her seat to a white passenger was an impetuous
decision of the moment. Although the officials of the NAACP arranged
her bail, they were taken by surprise. What happened on that rainy
December day was that Rosa Parks, tired from a long day at work, was
sitting in the first row of the colored section of the bus. When the white
section had filled up, the bus driver moved the black section signs back a
row and told the four black passengers to move to the back of the bus to
make room for more white passengers. Three black passengers moved to
the back of the bus, but Rosa Parks instead moved to the window seat.

Organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Both the NAACP and the Women’s Political Council quickly acted to fan
the flames of the Rosa Parks incident. Attorney Fred Gray first bailed Rosa
Parks out of jail, and while driving her home, he asked her if she was
willing to be the “symbol to galvanize the black community,” and she said
YES. Then they asked the unknown Martin Luther King, who had
previously turned down the presidency of the local NAACP chapter due to
other commitments, if he wanted to be a part of the movement. He, too
said YES, after conferring with Reverend Ralph Abernathy of the
Montgomery First Baptist Church. Martin was the educated pastor, while
Abernathy’s preaching was charismatic. These leaders organized the
boycott of the Montgomery municipal buses.

The bus boycott lasted from early December 1955 to late
December 1956. The Montgomery Improvement Association, or
MIA, was formed to coordinate the boycott. They elected Martin
Luther King to lead the organization, perhaps they were
impressed by his oratorical skills. This struggle captured the
attention of both national and international media, through his
oratorical skills Martin Luther King became a prominent
mouthpiece of the Civil Rights movement.
Martin Luther King addressed a crowd of four thousand at the
Holt Street Church, describing the injustices of the bus company
and the abuses suffered by Rosa Parks.

Rosa Parks at
Congressional
Gold Medal
ceremony with
President Bill
Clinton

There he preached: “There comes a time
when people get tired. We are here this
evening to say to those who have mistreated
us so long that we are tired, tired of being
segregated and humiliated, tired of being
kicked about by the brutal feet of
oppression. We have no alternative but to
protest. For many years we have shown
amazing patience. We have sometimes given
our white brothers the feeling that we liked
the way we were being treated. But we
come here tonight to be saved from that
patience that makes us patient with
anything less than freedom and justice.”
Rosa Parks with Martin Luther King Jr behind, 1955

This boycott was not merely a boycott against seats on
buses, it was a protest against the entire segregationist
structure. In Montgomery, 50,000 blacks feared the
intimidation of 70,000 white citizens. Two-thirds of
colored residences lacked indoor flush toilets compared to
five percent of white residences. The schools and parks of
blacks were grossly inferior to those of whites. Only two
thousand blacks, most of them officer workers, were
registered to vote.

More than
4400 African
Americans
were lynched
by white mobs
between 1877
and 1950. The
National
Memorial for
Peace and
Justice in
Montgomery
preserves their
memory.

Parks on one of Montgomery's buses on December 21, 1956, the
day they became legally integrated. Behind her is a UPI reporter.
Lewis states that “Ralph Abernathy
presented these demands of the
boycott:
• Courteous treatment by bus
drivers.
• First-come, first-serve seating
arrangement, with blacks filling
the rear and whites the front.
• Employment of black drivers on
predominantly black routes.”
Note that strict equality was not
demanded at this early stage of
the struggle.

The blacks overwhelmingly supported the boycott, the day after
it was announced there were very few blacks riding the buses.
But how could they sustain the boycott? The initial strategy was
for the black taxi drivers to offer rides for free to those blacks
boycotting the buses, but this was impossible due to a municipal
ordinance that prescribed a minimum fare for taxis, and breaking
this law would cause them to lose their license and insurance.
Instead, they organized a vast carpool that lasted throughout the
boycott. One unanticipated benefit was that the affluent blacks
became more acquainted with the problems confronting the less
prosperous blacks, which strengthened racial solidarity.

Barack
Obama
sitting on
the bus.
Parks was
arrested
sitting in the
same row
Obama is in,
but on the
opposite
side.

Violent Opposition to Boycott, and Dynamite
Those who led the boycott
faced firm opposition that
sometimes became violent. In
the newspaper Mayor Gayle
announced, “It is time to be
frank about this matter. The
white people are firm in their
convictions that they do not
care whether the Negroes ever
ride a city bus again if it means
that the social fabric of our
community is to be destroyed
so that Negroes will start riding
the buses again.”

Martin Luther King had learned of
a possible assassination plot. He
proclaimed to a crowd: “’Let us
keep moving with the faith that
what we are doing is right, and
with the even greater faith that
God is with us in the struggle.’ He
uttered these words before an
MIA assembly moments after
learning that his home had been
dynamited and without certain
knowledge of the welfare of his
family.” Coretta King with her husband MLK and daughter Yolanda, 1956

Miraculously, his family was
unharmed. His baby was sleeping
in the back of the house. His wife
Coretta walked into the bedroom
just before dynamite exploded on
their porch, sending glass into the
living room. Lewis writes, “As the
din subsided, Coretta, in
admirable control of herself,
answered the telephone. ‘Yes, I
did it,’ said a woman’s nasal
voice, ‘and I’m just sorry I didn’t
kill all you bastards.’” Coretta King with her husband MLK and daughter Yolanda, 1956

Returning home, Martin had to push his way through
a mob of more than three hundred angry blacks
gathered at his porch, many of them armed, to check
whether his family had been harmed.

Lewis recounts that Martin,
addressing the crowd, “asked for
quiet: ‘We believe in law and order.
Don’t get panicky. Don’t do
anything at all. Don’t get your
weapons. He who lives by the
sword will perish by the sword.
Remember, that is what God said.
We are not advocating violence. We
want to love our enemies. We must
love our white brothers no matter
what they do to us.’ The crowd
dispersed and the crisis passed.”

There was other violence, both official and unofficial.
Police threatened to issue tickets to crowds of blacks
waiting for carpool vehicles for vagrancy and
hitchhiking. White employers threatened to fire their
domestic servants and employees. Two other houses
of black activists were bombed. Martin Luther King
himself was arrested for speeding; he was going 30
MPH in a 25 MPH zone.

Buildings
burning
during
the Tulsa
race
massacre
of 1921

The bus boycott continued. Financial donations flowed in
from all over the world, the United Auto Workers sent a
big check. The donations were welcome, their monthly
expenses were five thousand dollars. In January alone
they bought fifteen station wagons for the carpool. The
MIA emphasized its strategy of non-violence. Martin
Luther King gained prominence and was invited for
speaking engagements at Fisk University and elsewhere.

Why did the Montgomery bus boycott command both national and
international attention? World War II had ended only a decade before,
everyone remembered how Hitler hated both Jews and blacks. In fact,
the Deep South segregation laws were used as precedent to enact the
Nazi antisemitic Race Laws. Oppressed nationalities were declaring
their independence with American encouragement, we reflected on the
related Pan-African movement in our reflections on WEB Du Bois. Later,
in his Letters from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King compared the
lynchings of blacks in the Jim Crow era to the Nazi holocaust of the
Jews. In addition, American officials were embarrassed by the
segregationist treatment of the black diplomats of these newly
independent nations in Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia.

https://youtu.be/MNhkq69CIfo https://youtu.be/YwgrKvIjoc0
https://youtu.be/_td3jPGD5TI https://youtu.be/PqFAUEXbi8k

Legal Struggles in Local and Supreme Courts

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was also a legal struggle. The boycott had a better
chance of success because of the unanimous opinion of Brown v Board of
Education, which signaled that the Supreme Court would support civil rights
appeals. The Republican President Dwight D Eisenhower had appointed Chief
Justice Earl Warren because of his conservative credentials rather than his judicial
credentials. Earl Warren was Thomas Dewey’s running mate in the 1948
presidential election, so he surprised everyone with his pro-civil rights rulings. Since
he was a politician, he knew that the Brown decision had to be a unanimous
decision to send a clear message to the Deep South that Jim Crow segregation and
discrimination would no longer be tolerated.
The local courts were adamantly opposed to the boycott. In February, the MIA
leaders were indicted for “conspiracy to interfere with normal business.” This
meant that Martin Luther King and the other MIA leaders were booked,
fingerprinted, photographed, bonded, and released awaiting trial in March.

Warren Supreme
Court in 1953.
Bottom from left:
Felix Frankfurter;
Hugo Black; Earl
Warren; Stanley
Reed; William
Douglas. Back
from left: Tom
Clark; Robert H.
Jackson; Harold
Burton; Sherman
Minton

As expected, the MIA lost their case in local court, but
they won in the court of public opinion, supported by a
battery of competent defense attorneys. The parade of
witnesses was embarrassing. As Lewis recalls, Mrs
Stella Brooks’ “husband requested the return of his
dime because the bus was too crowded,” he “was
fatally shot by the police.” “Mrs Martha Walker’s blind
husband’s leg was pinned by a bus door,” the bus
driver dragged him for several blocks. There was other
damaging testimony. Martin Luther King was called to
the stand, he emphasized that they “avoid violence at
all costs” in their protests. Eighty-nine defendants were
found guilty, and the MIA appealed the decision.
Rosa Parks statue, by Eugene
Daub, 2013, in National Statuary
Hall, United States Capitol

In May “the suit contesting the state’s
segregation laws” for public transportation
“was heard in Montgomery.” The city argued
that uncontrollable violence would result
from invalidating these Jim Crow laws.
Lewis recounts, “Judge Rives posed the
fundamental question: ‘Is it fair to command
one man to surrender his constitutional
rights to prevent another man from
committing a crime?’” With only one
dissent, these local judges declared the
city’s bus ordinance unconstitutional, and
the city appealed.
Due to threats of violence against her, US
Marshals escorted 6-year-old Ruby Bridges to
and from the previously whites only William
Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, 1960.

Then the city chose to enjoin the carpool itself as a
public nuisance and an unlicensed private business.
They were scheduled to appear before the same
hostile judge that had ruled against them earlier.
After the city’s attorneys were confidently arguing
their case, the court declared a recess.

Lewis writes, “A reporter for the
Associated Press handed Martin
Luther King a note: ‘THE US
Supreme Court today affirmed a
decision of a special three-judge
US District Court in declaring that
Alabama’s state and local laws
requiring segregation on buses
unconstitutional. The Supreme
Court acted without listening to
any argument; it simply said the
motion to affirm is granted and
the judgment is affirmed.’”
Sign directly opposite the Sojourner Truth homes, a new
U.S. federal housing project in Detroit, Michigan. A riot
was caused by white neighbors' attempts to prevent
African American tenants from moving in. February 1942

Surprisingly, the local judge still ruled in favor of the
city’s injunction, but in December a federal order
desegregated the buses in Montgomery. On
December 21, 1956, the MIA leaders boarded a bus
in front of Martin Luther King’s home.

Rosa Parks
receives
Presidential
Medal of
Freedom
from Bill
Clinton,
1966

But the city was still intransient,
they released a statement
proclaiming that “the City
Commission, and we know our
people are with us in this
determination, will not yield one
inch, but will do all in its power to
oppose the integration of the
Negro race with the white race in
Montgomery, and will forever
stand like a rock against social
equality, intermarriage, and
mixing of the races under God’s
creation and plan.”
Little Rock, 1959. Rally at state capitol, protesting
integration of Central High School.

Violence erupted, “a black teenage girl was beaten, a pregnant
woman was shot.” Churches and homes were dynamited, and
four black Baptist churches were destroyed. The city halted the
bus service entirely and threatened to discontinue service
permanently. After another round of bombings, public opinion
finally broke. Seven white men were surprisingly arrested for the
bombings, and five of them were found guilty by a white jury.
This was one of the first times that whites were found guilty of
grave crimes against blacks by white juries in the Deep South.

The Problem We
All Live With, by
Norman
Rockwell, 1963

New Kids in the
Neighborhood,
by Norman
Rockwell, 1967

Norman Rockwell painted “New Kids in the
Neighborhood” in 1967. Google Arts in 2023 had
links to narratives about the paintings he dedicated
to the Civil Rights struggle of the Sixties. In this
painting, he carefully shows the viewer what unites
the children: their age, and their love of baseball and
animals; and what seemingly divides them: their
race, and perhaps their parent's attitudes, giving us
hope for the future.

We previously reflected on Martin Luther King’s
youth, family, and schooling in his biography by
David Levering Lewis. After Montgomery were the
struggles to desegregate lunch counters and
interstate buses, and then they endured bombings
and brutality of the Birmingham Boycott in
Mississippi.

After that, the March on Washington DC was organized,
and Martin Luther King delivered his I Have a Dream
speech before the Lincoln Memorial. Then the civil rights
protesters, led by Martin, endured the bloody marches on
Selma, Alabama. Finally, he fought for more equitable
housing in Chicago, started organizing the Poor People’s
March, but his life was cut short by his assassination
during the protests supporting the sanitation workers
strike both in Memphis and New York.

The author, David Levering Lewis, was planning to write the
biography of Martin Luther King when he was assassinated. It
was initially published sixteen months later and quickly became
the classic biography of this Civil Rights icon. We also
supplemented his account with information from the Wikipedia
articles for Rosa Parks and Earl Warren. We discussed his
biography in greater depth in our reflection on his youth and
school years. Lewis also wrote the definitive biography for WEB
Du Bois, the iconic black leader who preceded Martin Luther
King.

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