Montgomery Bus Boycott

Montgomery Bus Boycott

During the first half of the twentieth century segregation was the way of life in the south. It was an excepted, and even though it was morally wrong, it still went on as if there was nothing wrong at all. African-Americans were treated badly because of the color of their skin color. It was almost impossible to find an area not segregated. The schools were segregated and the restaurants were segregated. There was even segregation present in public transportation. Martin Luther King Jr. could not have said it better when he addressed the massive crowd at the first meeting of Montgomery Improvement Association and said, “. . . we are here, we are here because we are tired now.”1 On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give her seat up to a white man who had nowhere to sit on the bus. Because she would not move to the back of the bus, she was arrested for violating the law. Rosa was thrown in jail and fined fourteen dollars. Enraged by Mrs. Parks arrest the black community of Montgomery united together and organized a boycott of the bus system until the city buses were integrated. The black men and women stayed of the buses until December 20, 1956, almost thirteen months after the boycott their goal was reached. Being president of the Montgomery Improvement Association taught Martin Luther the skills and gave the exposure to become a great leader of a movement as large as the civil rights movement. The thing that Martin Luther King is remembered most for was his public speaking skills. M.L.K was a master speaker and his speeches and the greatness of them will always live on forever.

During the beginning of the boycott very few people saw any possibility for the boycott to have much historical significance. The boycott needed something to really publicize what the black community was doing, something that would make it a point of interest. It needed something that open people’s eyes to what was happening in Montgomery. If something did happen it could have a positive effect on the outcome of the Bus Boycott. On February 21, 1956 Luther was indicted under an old state law prohibiting boycotts. The arrests of these men caused a story of national interest, pointing all eyes of the country on the boycott going on in Montgomery. Since, M.L.K was the president the M.I.A, much of the attention given to the boycott was focused on M.L.K himself. Soon Martin was getting invitations from all over the country inviting him to speak about his beliefs on non-violence and civil rights. Martin Luther King’s oratory skills made more and more popular and started becoming more and more of a leader in the movement. When the Boycott ended victoriously with the Supreme Court ruling the bus segregation was unconstitutional was a very important thing for Martin Luther King. Not only had he led a massive non-violent boycott of all the blacks in Montgomery, he was successful at winning what they had been fighting for. Again Martin Luther King’s name was linked to the bus boycott in national headlines. Only this time the papers were saying much greater things about him. He was not only the leader of a boycott; he was the leader of a successful boycott that caused the integration of buses in Montgomery. This good press made a very public and successful leader in the eye of the American Public. On January 10 and 11, 1957 a group of 11 ministers met at Martin Luther King’s Church in Atlanta, Ga. The topic of this meeting was what was going to happen next since the boycott was over. At the meeting the group decided to form an organization called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The SCLC was going to be an organization they worked for the civil rights of African-Americans, by using the same tactics of non-violence that were used in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Martin Luther King Jr. was elected as the president of this new organization. The SCLC went on to be one of the strongest organizations in the Civil Rights Movement. The leadership Martin Luther King Jr.in SCLC made him one of the most profound leaders of the civil rights movement.