try to. ? recalled Joe Azbell. The story of the upcoming boycott was on the
front page of Sunday’s morning edition, spreading the word to all the Negroes in
Montgomery. The piece Azbell ran on the boycott accused the NAACP of ?planting
that Parks women ? on the bus to stir things up and cause trouble. The
Montgomery Advertiser said that the Negroes were about to ?embrace the same
negative solutions ? as the hated White Citizens Council.
The ministers reinforced the call of the boycott at the pulpit that
Sunday morning, but doubt remained in the minds of the boycott organizers.
Would Montgomery’s black community unite for the boycott? Or would they ride
the buses in fear of white retaliation? The clergymen had barely been able to
agree on the one-day boycott, so why would the people follow them? To add to
their worries it looked like it might rain.
On Monday morning the sky was very dark with huge rain clouds covering
the sun. City police were on the watch for black ?goon squads? that would keep
black people off the buses. The police chief even went as far as to have two
motorcycle cops follow each bus. By 5:30 A.M. Monday, a torn off piece of
cardboard appeared on a bus shelter at Court Square, one of the main downtown
bus stops. The sign read ?PEOPLE DON’T RIDE THE BUSES TODAY. DON’T RIDE IT FOR
FREEDOM ?
In the house of young Dr. Martian Luther King Jr. on Monday, December
4th, Dr. King was making coffee in his kitchen. The Friday night meeting had
taken place at his church in Montgomery and he feared that the boycott would
fail. Dr. Reverend King took his coffee and sat down and waited for the first
bus on the South Jackson l0 line to go by his house at 6:00 A.M. The South
Jackson line carried more Negroes than any other line in town; ?the first bus
was usually jammed full with Negro domestics on their way to work ?. Dr. King
was still in the kitchen when his wife Coretta cried ?Martin, Martin, come
quickly! ? Martin just made it to the window in time to see an empty bus go by.
In a state of high excitement, King waited for the next bus to go by. It was
empty. So was the third one. With sprits soaring high Dr. King drove over to
Abernathy’s house in his car and the two of them drove all over town looking at
the buses. All over Montgomery the buses were empty of black people. It looked
like the boycott would be one hundred percent effective.
There were black students gladly hitchhiking to Alabama State. There
were old man and women walking as far as twelve miles to their downtown jobs.
People were riding mules, cows, horses and driving horse-drawn buggies to work.
Not one single person stood at a bus stop that wanted to ride the buses, just
groups of young people who stood there cheering and singing ?No riders today! ?
as the buses pulled away from the stop.
Montgomery’s eighteen black-owned taxi companies had agreed to transport
blacks for the same fare as they would pay on the bus-ten cents-on Monday
morning the cabs were crammed with people. In the Alabama Journal a reporter
described that first Monday. ?Negroes were on almost every street corner in the
downtown area, silent, waiting for rides or moving about to keep warm, but few
got on buses…scores of Negroes were walking, their lunches were in brown paper
sacks under their arms. None spoke to white people. They exchanged little talk
among themselves. It was an almost solemn event. ?
A local black historian who had watched the days events unfolded stated
that ?the ‘old unlearned Negroes’ were confused. It seemed they could not
figure out if the police (ridding along the buses) would arrest them or protect
them if they attempted to ride the buses…the few Negroes that rode the buses
were more confused. They found it difficult to get off without being
embarrassed by other Negroes who waited at the bus stops throughout the city.
Some were even seen ducking in the aisles as the buses passed various stops. ?
At 3:00 P.M. that afternoon King and other leaders of the boycott met to
set up a permanent organization to run the boycott. At Abernathy’s suggestion
they called it the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), to ?stress the
positive, uplift approach of their movement. ? The meeting was also called to
elect officers. Rufus Lewis saw the election as a way to move the ?well-
entrenched ? Bennett aside in a diplomatic way. Quickly Lewis nominated King
as president. Lewis attended King’s church and heard him speak often and knew
he was a master speaker, also Dr. King was new in town.
?Rev. King was a young man, a very intelligent man. He had not been
here long enough for the city fathers to put their hands on him. Usually they’d
find some young man just come to town…pat him on the back and tell him what a
nice church he got. They’d say ‘Reverend, your suit don’t look so nice to
represent so-and-so Baptist Church’…and they’d get him a suit…you’d have to
watch out for that kind of thing ? recalls E.D. Nixon, about how officials in
Montgomery treated black leaders.
With Rev. King as the new leader of the boycott, the organizers had to
deiced whether or not to have the bus boycott extend beyond Monday. The one-day
boycott had shown a strength that was never seen before in Montgomery. To
extend the boycott would be a direct assault by blacks on the Jim Crow system.
A serious and potentially dangerous event.
Several of the ministers were suggesting to leave the boycott as a one-
day success, they said the boycott might fall apart if it rained or if the
police started to arrest people. No one thought that it would last till the end
of the work week, which was four days away.
E.D. Nixon in a thundering voice said that they should confront the
whites no matter what. The time had come to take a stand!
?What is the matter with you people? Here you have been living off the
sweat of these washwomen all these years and you have never done anything for
them. Now you have a chance to pay them back, and you’re to damn scared to
stand on your feet and be counted! The time has come to be grown man or scared
boys ? said Nixon gesturing his big hands at the group of boycott leaders when
they wanted to quit.
Nixon was mad because his successor at the head of the NAACP in Alabama
had refused to help or support the boycott unless he got approval from the
national office. ?The man who was the President of the NAACP, said at that time,
‘Brother Nixon, I’ll have to wait until I talk to New York ( NAACP headquarters)
to find out what they think of it.’ I said ‘Man we ain’t got time for that.’
He believed in doing everything by the book. And the book stated that you had
to notify New York before you take a step like that. ? recalled E.D. Nixon on
how the NAACP responded when he asked them for support.
The group agreed to wait until that night’s meeting and let the people
decided if the boycott was to continue. The meeting was to be held at the Holt
Street Baptist Church, because it was in a black section of town. They figured
that Negroes would probably feel safer if they didn’t have to travel through
white neighborhoods to get to the meeting.
Newly elected leader of the MIA, Dr. King had about twenty minuets to
prepare a speech which he later called one of the most important speeches in his
life. It took Doctor King fifteen minuets to park his car and make his way to
the church at 7:00 P.M. There were no empty seats in the church and people were
spilled into the aisles and through the doorways in the back, the church had
been packed since five that afternoon. Outside the church thousands stood to
listen to the speeches and preaching that was going on inside through
loudspeakers. The meeting opened with ?Onward Christian Soldiers?, followed by
speeches from the boycott leaders.
Joe Azbell again covered the boycott story saying that ?the Holt Street
Baptist Church was probably the most fired up, enthusiastic gathering of human
beings that I’ve ever seen. I came down the street and I couldn’t believe there
were so many cars. I parked many blocks from the church just to get a place for
my car. I went up to the church, and they made way for me because I was the
first white person there…I was two minutes late and they were already
preaching, and that audience was so on fire that the preacher would get up and
say, ‘Do you want your freedom?’ And they’d say, ‘Yeah, I want my freedom!’
The preacher would say, ‘Are you for what we are doing?; ‘Yeah, go ahead, go
ahead!’…and they were so excited…I’ve never heard singing like that…they
were on fire for freedom. There was a sprit there no one could capture
again…it was so powerful. And then King stood up, and most of them didn’t
know how he was. And yet he was a master speaker…I went back and I wrote a
special column, I wrote that this was the beginning of a flame that would go
across America. ?
Doctor King approached the podium with only a mental outline of his
speech. If he choked in front of all of these people it would be the end of the
boycott, but if he inspired them there was no telling what they could do
together.
?We’re here this evening for serious business. We’re here in a general
sense because first and foremost, we are American citizens, and we are
determined to acquire our citizenship to the fullness of its meaning…There
comes a time when people get tired…tired of being segregated and humiliated;
tired of being kicked about 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, to be saved from
patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice….If
we are wrong then the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong
then the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God
almighty is wrong. ?
The crowd roared with ‘yeas’ and ‘right ons’, all through Dr. Kings
speech. The strongest show of emotion and applause came when Rev. King bravely
noted that ?If you protest courageously and yet with dignity and Christian love,
when the history books are written in future generations the historians will
pause and say ‘There lived a great people-a black people-who injected new
meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization’…We will not retreat one
inch in our fight to secure and hold our American citizenship. ? The church
roared in approval of Kings speech which was followed with an introduction of
Rosa Parks that received a standing ovation. Then Rev. Abernathy proceeded to
recite the three demands of the boycott.
1)Courteous treatment of passengers on the buses.
2)Change the seating to a first-come, first-served basis with blacks starting
at the rear, and whites starting at the front.
3)The hiring of black bus drivers on predominantly black routes.
Rev. Abernathy asked the people attending the meeting to vote and
descied whether or not the boycott should continue. Throughout the church
people began to stand. At first in ones and twos. Soon every person was
standing in the Holt Street Church approving the continuation of the boycott.
The thousands of people standing outside cheered in a resounding ?YES!?
?The fear left that had shackled us across the years-all left suddenly
when we were in that church together ? recalled Abernathy on how people left
the church unafraid, but how they were uncertain on how the city’s white leaders
would respond to their boycott. The Montgomery police were their main concern.
A white police officer had a few months earlier shot a black man who had refused
a bus driver order to get off the bus and reboard from the rear. The man
demanded his dime back, and the police officer suddenly fired his gun, instantly
killing the man. The dreaded Montgomery police were already harassing blacks
who were peacefully waiting for the taxis.
Four days later the MIA, including King and attorney Fred Gray, met with
the city commissioners and representatives of the bus company. The MIA
presented their three demands, with King making it clear that they were not
seeking an end to segregation through the boycott.
The bus company’s manger, James H. Bagely and its attorney, Jack
Crenshaw frantically denied that the bus drivers were regularly discourteous to
black passengers. They rejected the idea of hiring black bus drivers and stated
that the proposed seating plan was in violation of the state statue and city
code. Attorney Gray responded by showing that the seating plan was in no way a
violation against the already existing segregation laws. The seating
arrangements proposed was already in practice in another Alabama city, Mobil.
The Mobil bus company was also run by the same bus company as the Montgomery bus
line.
Attorney Crenshaw was adamant about the seating proposal. Commissioner
Frank was ready to give in and accept the seating proposal, but Crenshaw argued ?
I don’t see how we can do it within the law. If it were legal I would be the
first to go along with it, but it just isn’t legal. The only way that it can be
done is to change the segregation laws. ? Commissioner Clyde Sellers who was
staunchly opposed to segregation was not about to compromise. Crenshaw did not
help the MIA in stating that ?If we granted the Negroes these demands, they
would