The group elected Martin Luther King Jr., the 26-year-old-pastor of Montgomery’s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, as its president, and decided to continue the boycott until the city met its demands. That afternoon, Black leaders met to form the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). Black ministers announced the boycott in church on Sunday, December 4, and the Montgomery Advertiser, a general-interest newspaper, published a front-page article on the planned action.Īpproximately 40,000 Black bus riders-the majority of the city’s bus riders-boycotted the system the next day, December 5. Montgomery’s African Americans MobilizeĪs news of the boycott spread, African American leaders across Montgomery (Alabama’s capital city) began lending their support. The boycott was organized by WPC President Jo Ann Robinson. The Women’s Political Council (WPC), a group of Black women working for civil rights, began circulating flyers calling for a boycott of the bus system on December 5, the day Parks would be tried in municipal court. African American leaders decided to attack the ordinance using other tactics as well. Nixon, a prominent Black leader, who bailed her out of jail and determined she would be an upstanding and sympathetic plaintiff in a legal challenge of the segregation ordinance. The city's Black leaders prepared to protest, until it was discovered Colvin was pregnant and deemed an inappropriate symbol for their cause.Īlthough Parks has sometimes been depicted as a woman with no history of civil rights activism at the time of her arrest, she and her husband Raymond were, in fact, active in the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP), and Parks served as its secretary. Blake pulled away before she could re-board the bus.ĭid you know? Nine months before Rosa Parks' arrest for refusing to give up her bus seat, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested in Montgomery for the same act. In 1943, she had paid her fare at the front of a bus he was driving, then exited so she could re-enter through the back door, as required. This was not Parks’ first encounter with Blake. She was arrested and fined $10, plus $4 in court fees.
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