Rosa Parks &tT a l k i n g P o i n t s

Montgomery Bus BoycViv Sanders puts an inspiring figure, and an important event, into historical perspective.

Death of an IconThe recent death of 92-year-old RosaParks reminded people throughoutthe world of the great civil rightsmovement of mid-20th-centuryAmenca, In the years after her refusalto give up her seat for a white mantriggered off the Montgomery BusBoycott, she became an icon. In thatprocess, however, some essentialtruths about the significance of RosaParks and the Montgomery BusBoycott were lost.

There are several controversiesrelating to Rosa Parks and theMontgomery Bus Boycott,

Firstly, some books written foryounger children suggest that she wasa tired old lady who, after a hard day'swork, just could not take having togive up her seat. Such books suggestthat her refusal to give up her seat wasa spontaneous action.

Secondly, many historians' studiessuggest that the Montgomery BusBoycott was the first time that a blackcommunity had mobilised to opposesegregation. Some see the boycott asthe start of the civil rights movement.

Thirdly, many writers and readerseither give or have the impression thatRosa Parks was the only, or at least themost important, female figure in theblack struggle for civil rights.

This article takes issue with thesethree contentions.

A Spontaneous Action?Rosa Parks lived in Montgomery, thestate capital of Alabama, Throughoutthe Southern states, local lawsenforced segregation in public places,including buses. On 1 December1955, as on every other workday,Parks boarded the bus that would takeher home from work in the

Rosa Park5 posing for a police photograph after her refusal to give up aseat to a white passenger on 1 December 1955.

Montgomery Fair department store.That bus was particularly full. Asalways. Parks paid her fare to thewhite bus driver, and then walked tothe back of the bus to get up into theblack section. The first vacant seat was

at the front of the black section,halfway down the bus. Parks satdown, alongside three other blackpassengers.

After the bus reached the nextstop, white passengers took all the

History Review September 2006 3

The bus driver asked Parks and the other blacks in the row to get

out of their seats so that the white man would be able to sitdown and not have to sit alongside black people.

A TRANSCRIPT

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BECORD AND PROCEEDniGS

Before The

RECORDER'S COURT

In the Case of

for thu CHy

City of MontgonMiy

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Appeat«l to the Circuit Court ofMontfcoincry

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The official police record card of Rosa Parks.

seats in all the rows in front of Parks.One white man remained standing.The bus driver asked Parks and theother blacks in the row to get out oftheir seats so that the white manwould be able to sit down and nothave to sit alongside black people.While the other three blackpassengers obediently gave up theirseats, Parks refused. The bus driverstopped the bus, called for the police,and Parks was arrested.

Parks was not a tired, little old lady- she was only 42 years old. Nor didher act of defiance come out of theblue. Rosa Parks came from a familythat had a long tradition of civil rightsactivism. She was a committed andtrained activist who, prior to her

arrest, had frequently discussed withother Montgomery activists thedesirability of a suitable blackpassenger getting arrested for defyingbus segregation laws. The activistsanticipated that such an arrest wouldiead to inevitable punishment andthen trigger a bus boycott byMontgomery's black community.

The Making of an ActivistBorn in 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama,of mixed race descent, pale-skinnedRosa considered herself black. Sherecalled that her grandfather, whohad been born into slavery, 'was verylight-comptexioned, with straight hair,and sometimes people took him forwhite. He took every bit of advantage

of being white-looking. He was alwaysdoing or saying something that wouldembarrass or agitate white people.'He had been a keen supporter ofMarcus Garvey's Universal NegroImprovement Association, the firstmass movement in black Americanhistory. Garvey had urged supportersto take pride in being black. Rosabelieved that blacks were 'directdescendants of the greatest andproudest race who ever peopled theearth'.

Rosa's family belonged to anotherpolitically active organisation, theAfrican Methodist Episcopal Church.In 1900, Montgomery's blackministers had urged theircongregations to boycottMontgomery's electnc trolley systemin protest against segregation. Theboycott was a success, until thestreetcars were re-segregated as aresult of the re-emergence of the KuKlux Klan in the 1920s. 'I had heardstories about the 1900 boycott,' Parksremembered, and 'I thought about itsometimes when the segregatedtrolley passed by. It saddened me tothink how we had taken one footforward and two steps back,'

From an early age Rosa was aware,and resentful, of racial inequality andhostility. She recalled that, as a child,'We talked about how just in case theKlansmen broke into our house, weshould go to bed with our clothes onso we would be ready to run if we hadto,'

From 1931, 18 year-old Rosa livedin Montgomery with her light-skinnedhusband Raymond Parks. The NationalAssociation for the Advancement ofColored People (NAACP) was theoldest and most prestigious blackorganisation. Raymond helped foundMontgomery's branch and sold paperssuch as NAACP's Crisis in hisbarbershop. As an NAACP activist,Raymond helped raise funds for thelawyers who kept the Scottsboroyouths (who had been unfairlyaccused of raping white women) outof the electric chair.

In 1941 Rosa Parks got a job at

4 Histoiy Review Septonber 2006

'How many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?'

Maxwell Field, a US military base. Oneof her heroes. President Franklin D.Roosevelt, had ordered the integrationof the base. This gave Rosa newinsight: 'You might just say Maxwellopened my eyes up. It was analternative reality to the ugly racialpolicies of Jim Crow. I could ride on anintegrated trolley on the base, butwhen I left the base, I had to ridehome on a segregated bus.'

In 1942, Rosa Parks joined NAACP•From the start the NAACP, to me atleast, was about empowermentthrough the ballot box. With a votewould come economicimprovements.' Southern blackssuffered political as well as socialdiscrimination. During World War II,only a few Southern blacks were ableto vote. Rosa resented her brotherSylvester being drafted to fight for a'democracy' in which he could notvote. White registrars made it difficultfor blacks to vote by asking difficultquestions on state constitutions orimpossible questions such as 'Howmany bubbles are there in a bar ofsoap?' One black college graduateresponded to the latter question with,'I'm afraid I don't know, sir, but as Idon't want to remain ignorant for therest of my life, I would be very gratefulif you told me the answer'.

Rosa soon became MontgomeryNAACP secretary. She worked closelywith local NAACP leader, railroadporter E.D. Nixon, whose father was aBaptist minister. Nixon was not easy towork with. He repeatedly said,'Women don't need to be nowherebut in the kitchen'. Parks wouldrespond, 'What about me?', andNixon would say, 'I need a secretary,and you're a good one.' Nixon hadbeen inspired by black trade unionistA. Philip Randolph. Randolph hadestablished the first black trade union,the Brotherhood of Sleeping CarPorters, and in 1941 had threatenedPresident Franklin Roosevelt with ablack March on Washington unless hedid something to equaliseblack employment opportunities.Randolph's tactic had worked. This

was one of the many early examplesof the use or threat of non-violentprotest in order to improve the blacksituation.

Montgomery bus driver JamesBlake, who liked to call black women'bitch' and 'coon', clashed with RosaParks when she tried to board his busat the front in 1943. Blake ordered heroff. She obeyed and vowed never toboard 'Blake's bus' again. In that same

against the racist Nazi ideology, thenreturned home to find white Americanracism unchanged, many lost hopeand respect for white Americans. Spatupon by whites, called 'uppity' by thepolice and unable to find a job inMontgomery, Sylvester moved toDetroit. There, despite frequent'White workers preferred' notices, hissister noted, 'you couid find a seatanywhere on a bus' and 'get better

The badly mutilated corpse of Emmett Till at his funeral. Thisphotograph profoundly affected Parks.

year. Parks tried to register to vote.Would-be black voters were asked topass a literacy test, which Parks 'failed'in 1943. Another obstacle to blackvoting was the poll tax. Payment ofthe $16.50 poll tax before she couidvote was expensive for Parks, who didnot earn much as a part-timeseamstress. However, in 1945 shefinally managed to register and votedfor 'Big Jim' Folsom for governor.Amazingly, despite denouncing the KuKlux Klan and racial and sexualinequality, he won the election.

Meanwhile, Parks' brotherSylvester had returned from servinghis country in World War II. The warwas a turning point in AfricanAmerican history, according to blackwriter James Baldwin. Baldwin saidthat when black Americans fought

accommodation'. However, the 1943Detroit race riots, in which 34 blackswere killed, made her realise that'racism was almost as widespread inDetroit as in Montgomery'. Shedropped the idea of moving North: itwas not the 'promised land'.

The NAACP's top female worker,Ella Baker, was Parks' greatestinspiration at an NAACP leadership-training seminar in Florida (1946),Parks was rising rapidly within theNAACP ranks. In 1947 she was madesecretary of NAACP for the whole ofAlabama, In 1949 she became adviserto the NAACP Youth Group inMontgomery. She and Nixonencouraged students to enter thesegregated public library and askrepeatedly (if unsuccessfully) forbooks. 'Every day in the early 1950s

Histoiy Review Sepiember 2006 5

'Every day in the early 1950s we were looking

for ways to challenge Jim Crow laws.'

we were looking for ways to challengeJim Crow laws.' She was particularlyexcited by the black community's busboycott in Baton Rouge in Louisiana in1953, but disappointed when theBaptist Church called it off.Sometimes Christian churches werereluctant to challenge racial inequality,

talked about the Supreme Court'sBROWN 1954 ruling againstsegregated education. Parkssubsequently noted the inspirationaleffect of that ruling: 'You can'timagine the rejoicing among blackpeople, and some white people. It wasa very hopeful time'. Significantly, four

to persuade Montgomery ministers tosupport a bus boycott. Nixon and theWPC talked incessantly aboutorganising a bus boycott in 1954 and1955.

As inspirational as BROWN, but ina very different way, was the August1955murderof EmmettTill.Till, a 14-

A bus in Texas in 1956, with black Americans confined to the back rows of seats.

although some preachers would takethe lead in the civil rights movement.Parks recalled that she was inspired bysermons on civil nghts preached in herchurch.

\n August 1955, Parks was one ofonly 30 people (mostly women) whoturned up to hear exciting newMontgomery preacher Martin LutherKing address an NAACP meeting. King

days after the BROWN decision, JoAnn Robinson, an English professor atAlabama State University, wrote toMontgomery's mayor, threatening abus boycott unless blacks receivedbetter treatment on Montgomery'sbuses. Robinson led a universitylecturers' group, the Women's PoliticalCouncil (WPC), set up at the end ofWorld War II. The WPC had long tried

year-old from Chicago, had visited hiscousins in Mississippi. The family of awhite woman took offence at somecomments made by Till, and Till'smangled, unrecognisable corpse waslater found in the river. Rosa Parkscried when she saw a photograph ofTill in his open coffin. When an all-white jury found those accused of hismurder not guilty, Rosa grew more

6 History Review Septemlwr 2006

determined to make some kind of astand. After she met HarlemCongressman Adam Clayton Powellshe was even more inspired, Powellstayed with E,D, Nixon when he cameto Alabama to encourage the blackpopulation of the town of Selma toboycott the local dairy for having fireda black petitioner for schooldesegregation.

During 1954-55, Parks worked forwhite couple Clifford and VirginiaDurr, Virginia Durr introduced Parks toHighlander Folk School, which hadbeen established in Tennessee in 1932as a centre for the study of worker andblack rights. Leading civil nghtsactivists such as Martin Luther Kingattended training courses there. Parksfound Highlander inspirational. TheDurrs were well acquainted with theWPC at Alabama State University andjoined the lecturers, Parks and Nixonin discussing a possible Montgomerybus boycott. They were especiallyencouraged when a South Carolinafederal court ruled that intrastatesegregated bus seating wasunconstitutional.

As part of her NAACP work withyoung people, Rosa Parks was thementor of 15 year-old NAACP youthmember Claudette Colvin, Colvin wasa feisty character who wrote a schoolessay denouncing the law thatprohibited blacks from trying onclothes in white department stores asthey would 'smell or grease up themerchandise'. In March 1955 Colvinrefused to give up her bus seat to awhite woman, and as a result wastaken to court for defiance ofMontgomery's bus segregation laws.NAACP nearly made Colvin a test caseagainst bus segregation until Nixonfound out that she was severalmonths pregnant. As Rosa said, thewhite press would have depicted thepregnant teenager as 'a bad girl'.Racial tension over bus seating hadincreased dramatically in Montgomeryduring 1955. One man had been shotto death for disobeying bus drivers. InOctober, an 18-year-old Montgomeryteenager was jailed for not giving up

her seat (behind the 'for colored' sign)to a white lady. Rosa Parks too wasbehind the movable 'colored' sign onDecember 1st 1955.

The search for a test caseThe actions and treatment of RosaParks on 1st December 1955 came ata time when she, Nixon and Jo AnnRobinson and the WPC were waitingfor a bus segregation test case. Theydreamed of a bus boycott in supportof someone taken to court for defyingthe bus segregation laws. Theyguessed they would get plenty ofsupport from Montgomery women.Hardly any black women had cars, sothey constituted a large majority ofbus users. This was one humiliationfrom segregation that was faced dailyby the majority of Montgomery's blackwomen. The whole black communitywas ready for a test case, and themiddle-class, middle-aged andeminently respectable Rosa Parks wasan ideal candidate, Rosa Parks did notboard that bus that day intending tobe arrested (she had only boardedBlake's bus by accident). However,when she was faced with Blake'sultimatum, her lifetime of activism,the recent plans for a bus boycott andthe mood of the local communitysurely made the Montgomery BusBoycott inevitable. After the BatonRouge boycott, BROWN, Emmett Tilland several recent ugly incidents onthe Montgomery buses, Montgomeryblacks were ripe for communityactivism. Given the contemporarycircumstances, it is surely unrealistic totalk of a 'spontaneous' action.

When subsequently recalling heractions on 1st December 1955, MrsParks gave the impression that heractions were indeed spontaneous.Was this failing memory? Or the desireto make a more dramatic story?Rather, it seems probable thatalthough she had not boarded withthe intent of making a scene, it washighly unlikely that an activist in hersituation and frame of mind wouldsimply leave her seat at Blake'srequest. Although she had not

planned to trigger off a bus boycotton that particular day, she wantedsuch a boycott. Similarly, although shehad not planned to be the test case,she wanted such a case and would nothave been true to herself had she notagreed to be that case.

Encouraged and supported by JoAnn Robinson, Nixon asked Rosa Parksto be the NAACP test case. WhileRaymond remonstrated, 'Rosa, thewhite folks will kill you', she assentedto Nixon's request. When Rosa wasfound guilty of breaking thesegregation laws and fined, the blackcommunity, which had boycotted thebuses for the day of the trial, decided

In March 1955 Colvinrefused to give up her

bus seat to a whitewoman, and as a resultwas taken to court for

defiance ofMontgomery's bussegregation laws.

to continue the boycott for as long asit took the local authorities to improveconditions on the buses.

What happened to Rosa Parks?The boycott lasted for a year untilNAACP litigation and economicpressure forced Montgomery todesegregate its buses. During thatyear, things did not go well for RosaParks, Because of her activism, she losther job in Montgomery Fair. Raymondgave up his job at the Air Force basewhere discussion of 'Rosa' hadbecome a sackable offence. The Parks'white landlord raised their rent. Theyreceived phoned death threats.Raymond began to drink and smokeheavily, 'Rosie, get the hell out ofMontgomery', advised her cousin:'Whitey is going to kill you,' Aftercountless death threats, the inability

History Review September 2006 7

The civil rights movement did not spring to life overnight at Montgomery due tosome co-incidental combination of Mrs Parks' arrest and the involvement of anobscure young minister called Martin Luther King in the resultant boycott.

to get work (they were'troublemakers') and jealousy fromwithin the Montgomery civil nghtsmovement (especially from men), theParks moved to Detroit,

As the civil rights movementgained momentum and success in theSouth, Rosa frequently returned toSouthern civil rights gatherings. Herfame and significance increased. In1975, city officials invited Rosa toMontgomery to celebrate thetwentieth anniversary of the busboycott. When she had left Alabama,in 1956, there had been no electedblack official; in 1975, there were 200.

Her iconic status wasdemonstrated in Nelson Mandela's1990 visit to Detroit, As the giant ofthe black South African struggle forequal nghts got off the plane hesought her out, walked toward hersaying 'Rosa Parks, Rosa Parks, RosaParks...'over and over again until theymet in a long, silent embrace.

When Rosa Parks died, in autumn2005, the old myths of thespontaneous activism and the start ofthe civil rights movement surfaced yetagain.

The Start of the Civil RightsMovement?The story of Rosa Parks' activism helpsto illustrate that the civil rightsmovement did not spring to lifeovernight at Montgomery due tosome co-incidental combination ofMrs Parks' arrest and the involvementof an obscure young minister calledMartin Luther King in the resultantboycott. At every stage of the eventsfrom 1st December 1955 to thetriumphant end of the boycott in1956, the roots of the actions can beseen stretching way back.

Firstly, black churches had a longtradition of activism, ranging from theReverend Theodore Jemison, who hadinitiated and organised the 1953Baton Rouge bus boycott, to thoseministers whose sermons on civilrights inspired Rosa Parks.

Secondly, the NAACP had beenpublicising and fighting to improve

the black situation since the earlytwentieth century. Throughpainstaking litigation, NAACP hadwon many victories eroding Jim Crow,such as the 1954 BROWN decision,which so inspired Rosa Parks. NAACPhad fought on behalf of countlessblack litigants before helping tofinance the litigation arising fromMontgomery Bus Boycott in 1955-6,

Thirdly, there had been manyorganisations that had campaigned toimprove the black situation, such asthe Montgomery WPC andHighlander Folk School, both of whichworked with and inspired Rosa Parks.Thus the Montgomery Bus Boycottwas very much the tip of the iceberg.

Essentially, the search for the'trigger event' of the civil rightsmovement of the 1960s is ratherunprofitable, especially when it is soclear that so many of the foundationsof the Montgomery Bus Boycott andthe highly publicised events of the1960s were laid long before.

The whole blackcommunity was readyfor a test case, and themiddle-class, middle-aged and eminently

respectable Rosa Parkswas an ideal candidate.

Women in the Civil RightsMovementThe final myth surrounding Rosa Parksis that which would have us believethat she was the only female of anyimportance involved in the civil rightsmovement. It could be argued thatthey were at least two others, EllaBaker (1903-86) and Fannie LouHamer (1917-77), who did far more ofsignificance than she, (For furtherdetails of their work, and of manyother important woman involved in

the civil rights movement in the USA,see a forthcoming article in HistoryReview.)

ConclusionsIt is easy to understand why so manymyths about Rosa Parks and theMontgomery Bus Boycott have arisen.The brave little woman who suddenlycould not take it any more is a verygood story. So is the single dramaticevent that galvanised American blacksinto the civil rights movement. Thetired old lady who would not give upher seat on the bus is easier to fix uponthan painstaking organisers. Themyths are dramatic and appealing -but they do a disservice to blackAmerican activism, and particularly tothat of black women. It is time to giveall those activists, including andespecially Rosa Parks herself, credit fortheir sustained efforts on behalf offreedom and equality.

Further ReadingDouglas Brinkley, Mirie Eyes HaveSeen the Giory: Tlie Life of Rosa Parf<s(New York, 2000)Jo Ann Robinson, The MontgomeryBus Boycott and the Women Who5fa/tec//f(Knoxville, 1989)Rosa Parks, Rosa Parks: My Sfory (NewYork, 1992)

Issues to debateo What motivated Rosa Parks tobecome a political activist?o Why did her defiance of bussegregation have such profoundeffects?o What place in the history of civilrights activism should be assigned toRosa Parks,

Dr Viv Sanders is Head of Historyat Dame Alice Harpur School inBedford. Her latest book. RaceRelations in the USA 1863-1980,was published by Hodder in theAccess series in April 2006.

8 Histoiy Review Sepiember 2006