The Montgomery Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama was a crucial event in the 20th Century Civil Rights Movement. On the evening of December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks, a Montgomery seamstress on her way home from work, refused to give up her seat on the bus for a white man and was subsequently arrested. The President of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), E.D. Nixon, used the arrest to launch a bus boycott to fight the city’s segregated bus policy. Together with Jo Ann Robinson of the Women’s Political Council, and other black leaders, Nixon set plans for the boycott.
The idea of the boycott had been floating around for months. Both Nixon and Robinson were waiting for a test cast to challenge the segregated bus policy in Court. They knew that they would have large support from black women who made up a majority of the bus users. The only thing missing was a good test candidate and respectable, middle-class Rosa Parks seemed perfect for the role.
On Friday December 2, Robinson created a flyer which she distributed to black families around Montgomery. The flyer told of the arrest of Parks and mentioned that 75% of the bus riders were blacks and if there was a boycott of the bus system then the city would be forced to pay attention to these customers. It then called for a boycott of the buses on Monday December 5th.
Robinson arranged a meeting with Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the ministers of two of the largest black churches in the city. While they hesitated at first, they ultimately agreed to participate and held a meeting at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, King’s church, to plan the boycott. A new organization, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), was created to lead the boycott and Rev. King was appointed its president. It was also decided that the boycott should continue until the buses were no longer segregated. In order to get people around town during the boycott, the churches bought or rented cars and station wagons to transport people.
Meanwhile boycott supporters challenged the legality of bus segregation in court. Their case, Browder v. Gayle, was eventually heard by the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled on November 13, 1956, in favor of the plaintiffs. The boycott ended on December 20, 1956, 381 days after it had begun. The buses in Montgomery were now integrated.
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I think it's good to know what you do with them and why you do it and what the limits of that are. Nothing but becoming a professional revolutionary will have you feel not like you are part of something rotten, is my guess, though
Material circumstances. We do the best we can with what we've got while trying to make the circumstances more favorable for our comrades in the future.
Yeah, this is strictly not meant as "you should become a professional revolutionary right away". Very much focused on subjective feelings.
Totes fair. o 7
I don't think we are disagreeing. Having the ressources and character to be a professional revolutionary effectively is very rare rn, sadly. And with neither subjective nor material factors there for it, we are not gonna see a revolutionary movement in the west this fast.
I was looking at the feeling you have when you try to navigate greasy liberal spaces, but you are totally right in pointing out that tryharding revolution will not work if the person is not extremely exceptional
Strong agree. Trying to find a way to participate in liberal institutions without wanting to yell at people is very difficult.
went to a city council meeting yesterday bc they were voting on bulldozing a huge plot of land to put up bougie apartments. No one on the council said anything until someone cursed and it awakened the Mao in me
Because cursing is certainly more violent than having the power to displace people!
I suppose this is what stemmed the nonprofit Q. I looked into the org I’ve been volunteering with. Couldn’t find anything too shady (tax returns showed like 2M gross) but it’s a very electoralism-brained nonprofit and starting to get on my nerves because I don’t know if I’m helping anyone. Add on the fact that your average voter is truly beyond hope and only thinks in the context of “teams” and you have a recipe for disaster. And I believe in electoralism at the local level to an extent
Like I said though, it’s all rotten
Have you ever looked around for local anarchist mutual aid orgs? A lot of them just straight up go out and feed people, give people rides, help out with things homeless people need. It can be a nice break from liberal NGO-brain. You're actually interacting with people who benefit from community and cooperation.
I have not, but definitely sounds beneficial. I’ll do some research! Thanks so much