{"id":1067,"date":"2010-11-17T06:56:24","date_gmt":"2010-11-17T06:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/?p=1067"},"modified":"2010-11-17T17:43:25","modified_gmt":"2010-11-17T17:43:25","slug":"gayle-v-browder-1956-and-the-montgomery-bus-boycott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/2010\/11\/17\/gayle-v-browder-1956-and-the-montgomery-bus-boycott\/","title":{"rendered":"Gayle v. Browder (1956) and the Montgomery Bus Boycott"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Civil Rights Lawyer Fred Gray, Image Courtesy of Fred Gray, Encyclopedia of Alabama<\/p><\/div>\n

In From Jim Crow to Civil Rights <\/em>(Oxford, 2004), Michael Klarman argues the direct and indirect effects of Brown v. Board of Education<\/em> (1954)<\/a> and debates its impact and connection with the Montgomery bus boycott<\/a>. The boycott marked the first major direct-action protest of the post Brown<\/em> civil rights era and a “decisive turning point” for southern Negroes. While Gayle v. Browder<\/em> (1956)<\/a>invalidated bus segregation laws and effectively desegregated Montgomery buses, Klarman downplays the court decisions significance on the modern civil rights movement and highlights the actual boycott as having the lasting impact, noting that the Montgomery bus boycott “demonstrated black agency, resolve, courage, resourcefulness, and leadership” and “enlightened millions of whites about Jim Crow” (372).<\/p>\n

The Montgomery bus boycott originally did not call for the desegregation of city buses. In March 1954, President of the Women’s Political Council<\/a>, Jo Ann Robinson <\/a>and other members\u00a0met with Montgomery Mayor William A. Gayle requesting modest changes for fairer treatment of blacks, not integration\u00a0of the bus transit system. When the changes were not made, Robinson wrote a letter to the mayor in May warning of a potential boycott. On March 2, 1955, Claudette Colvin <\/a>became the first person arrested for challenging the segregation laws for buses. Colvin as well as Mary Louise Smith, Aurelia S. Browder and Susie McDonald were all arrested that year for violating segregation bus laws. All four women would serve as the\u00a0plaintiffs in Gayle v. Browder <\/em>(1956). It was the arrest of Rosa Parks<\/a> for disorderly conduct\u00a0on December 1, 1955 that set the Montgomery bus boycott in motion, mobilizing the public to finally\u00a0take action. On December 5, Fred Gray <\/a>defended Parks\u00a0in her\u00a0trial while Robinson and other black leaders called for\u00a0a one day boycott of the Montgomery buses. With over 90 percent of blacks staying off the buses, local leaders pressed for further action and formed the Montgomery Improvement Association <\/a>and elected Martin Luther King Jr<\/a>. as its president. The MIA submitted a resolution asking for three small actions for fairer treatment: for drivers to display more courtesy toward colored riders, seating be arranged on a first-come first-serve basis, and for colored drivers to be hired for bus routes that were predominately black. None of their demands were\u00a0 met and the boycott continued.<\/p>\n

The city refused to make the concessions and adopted a “get tough” policy,\u00a0believing that the boycott would not last as blacks were seen as undisciplined and unorganized. Boy-cotters were arrested\u00a0while\u00a0King\u00a0and civil rights activist Edgar Daniel Nixon <\/a>had their homes\u00a0bombed. Many of these actions brought negative national publicity to Montgomery furthering the support for the case. With their demands not being met, the MIA decided to challenge the legality of bus segregation. On February 1, 1956, two days after the bombing of King’s house, Gray and Charles D. Langford filed\u00a0a federal district\u00a0court petition that became known as Gayle v, Browder. <\/em>The case, featuring the four women, Browder, Smith, Colvin and McDonald as plaintiffs who had been arrested on city buses, challenged “the constitutionality of the laws requiring segregation on the buses in the city of Montgomery” (Gray, 69). Because the case challenged a state-statute, the case was heard by a three-judge United States District Court panel. On June 5, 1956, Judge Richard T. Rives wrote the 2-1 decision ruling that segregation on Alabama buses was unconstitutional citing Brown <\/em>as precedent. The decision was appealed by Mayor Gayle\u00a0and the case\u00a0reached the Supreme Court where it was upheld unanimously\u00a0on November 13, 1956<\/a>. On\u00a0December 17, 1956,\u00a0Alabama tried to appeal the\u00a0Gayle v. Browder <\/em>decision again but their plea was rejected by the Supreme Court. Three days later it was ordered for Montgomery buses to be integrated which led to the MIA calling off the 381-day boycott.<\/p>\n

Many of the actors involved in the boycott and case wrote books about the events as well as their own lives. Fred Gray’s Bus Ride to Justice <\/a>(<\/em>Montgomery, 1995) contains his first hand account of the events and is partially available on Google Books. Martin Luther King Jr.’s\u00a0intimate account of the successful nonviolent protest Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story <\/em><\/a>(New York, 1958) is another great source for readers. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It <\/a><\/em>(Tennessee, 1987) is the account and memoir of Jo Ann Robinson.\u00a0Klarman utilizes Stewart Burns’\u00a0Daybreak of Freedom: The Montgomery Bus Boycott<\/a> <\/em>(North Carolina, 1997) as his main source for the boycott and case.<\/p>\n

An invaluable\u00a0online resource is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and\u00a0Education Institute<\/a>. The site features an encyclopedia<\/a> with various entries on the events, cases, organizations and people involved with the civil rights movement. Each entry contains references, links to relevant entries as well as primary documents related to the entry. Another helpful free\u00a0online resource is the Encyclopedia of Alabama <\/a>which contains numerous articles on the events and people involved.<\/p>\n

For other references on people involved in the case and boycott, there are numerous sources available in books and online. Claudette Colvin is the subject of Phillip M. Hoose’s new book Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice <\/a><\/em>(New York, 2009). There is an article<\/a> in the Montgomery Advertiser <\/em>which explores the life of Aurelia Browder that is available online. Their site<\/a> has a feature\u00a0on the Montgomery\u00a0bus\u00a0boycott and\u00a0offers other\u00a0materials including video. Judge Richard T. Rives, who wrote the 2-1 decision that ruled segregation unconstitutional in the case, had his obituary<\/a> printed in the New York Times<\/em> on October 30, 1982. The other judge who ruled in the majority was Frank Minis Johnson Jr, who is the subject of many books including Jack Bass’ Taming the South: The Life and Times of Judge Frank M. Johnson and the South’s Fight Over Civil Rights<\/em><\/a>(New York, 1993) which is considered the most complete biography and available at the Dickinson Library. Seybourn Lynne, the dissenter in the case, had his obituary<\/a> published in the New York Times <\/em>on September 12, 2000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In From Jim Crow to Civil Rights (Oxford, 2004), Michael Klarman argues the direct and indirect effects of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and debates its impact and connection with the Montgomery bus boycott. The boycott marked the first … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12444],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-supreme-court-cases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-404pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}