Montgomery Bus Boycott: Collective Action for Civil Rights

Introduction

"We are sorry that the colored people blame us for any state or city ordinance which we didn't have passed … we had nothing to do with the laws being passed, but we expect to abide by all laws, city or state …" (Montgomery City Lines Superintendent J.H. Bagley, quoted on December 3, 1955, in the Montgomery Advertiser).

That quote may be reminiscent of the classic excuse, "We were just doing our jobs" — but so were the thousands of African-American men and women who were determined to change the way they were treated in Alabama and in the Jim Crow South. There were many positive events and memorable moments in the campaigns that represented the justice African-Americans were seeking — and ultimately achieved — by doing precisely that: their jobs, in the service of justice, during the 1950s Civil Rights Movement.

This paper focuses on the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the events leading up to it, the energy and commitment that sustained it, and its outcome. The central argument is that, as important and vital as the Montgomery Bus Boycott was to the Civil Rights Movement and to the justice African-Americans sought through concerted effort, the boycott also represents — in hindsight — the power that humans create when they engage in collective action for meaningful social change.

How the Boycott Began

Professor of Communications Felicia McGhee writes that a few days before J.H. Bagley of the Montgomery City Lines was quoted in the local paper, Rosa Parks had refused to give up her seat to a white man. "Her actions violated the city's bus segregation laws, and she was subsequently arrested for disorderly conduct" (McGhee, 2015). While most accounts of the launch of the Montgomery Bus Boycott give Rosa Parks full credit for having the courage to stand up to Jim Crow laws, several months earlier two other African-American women — Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith — had been arrested for "similar actions" in Montgomery (McGhee, 252).

Thanks to these three brave women, the boycott was underway. It lasted 381 days, ending when the United States Supreme Court ruled that Montgomery's "segregated bus system was unconstitutional" (McGhee, 252). The boycott cost the bus company an estimated $750,000 in losses from which it never fully recovered. With many of the 44,000 Black residents of Montgomery participating, social changes were made and some semblance of justice was achieved.

A Look at the Past

In journalist Juan Williams' book Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954–1965, the author notes that well before the Civil Rights Movement, "Black abolitionists failed to stem the rising crest of white racism after Reconstruction." Unfortunately, the U.S. Congress allowed the white South to keep Black Americans pinned down in a state of "peonage, to disregard their civil rights, and to disfranchise them by force, intimidation, and statute" (Williams). The Supreme Court upheld Jim Crow laws, and as a result "southern Blacks became increasingly vulnerable to physical assault and murder" — over a thousand Black Americans were lynched between 1900 and 1915 (Williams).

In the 1920s there was a flicker of hope: the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Renaissance, and the New Negro Movement offered new cultural and political energy. When W.E.B. Du Bois helped launch the NAACP — with his brilliant writing featured in his monthly journal, The Crisis — Black Americans began to make formal demands of Congress (Williams).

Labor unions helped Black workers gain political muscle; Philip Randolph was a strong voice for justice; and President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, which "established the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practices" (Williams). The president's directive made it illegal to discriminate in employment practices by unions and companies holding government contracts. By 1945, Black membership in labor unions had grown to a healthy 1,250,000 (Williams). These developments offered genuine signs that there was light at the end of the tunnel for fairness, justice, and the possibility of achieving the American Dream.

Conclusion

The power of the people to accomplish something vital, as demonstrated by the Montgomery Bus Boycott, can never be shut down. The boycott will always be seen by historians and scholars as one of the pivotal pieces of the puzzle that African-Americans had to resolve before they could begin to enjoy the Constitutional rights the founding fathers intended for all. As a landmark demonstration of collective action — combining community solidarity, nonviolent resistance, and strategic legal advocacy — the Montgomery Bus Boycott remains one of the most instructive episodes in the long struggle for justice in American history.