Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History Rosa Parks The Montgomery Bus Boycott 20240712

Myths about rosa parks and the montgomery bus boycott. She was not the first africanamerican woman who trooe fused to give her seat. Why this version has become so widespread. So our focus today then is going to be the montgomery bus boycott. That is and what you read your sources for except the payne article that gave you a larger focus and to do that well go back to the discussion of origin point. Our favorite slide which youre going to be so sick of. Representing the narrative arc of the popular story of the Civil Rights Movement. And were going back to our topic of origin points, again with the objective of troubling it. One, putting those events in context but also troubling the idea of them as origin points. And last week we discussed brown versus board of education, we discussed the decision, response, the impact but also the legacy. And i want to talk more about the legacy as we go forward but were not going to do that today. And then on tuesday, we spent time talking about the emmett till case. And which the lynching of emmett till in august of 1955 and we used a mix of secondary and primary sources to consider hour ideology of race and gender and justice impacted that case and the lived experience of people in that case. And i wanted to take a moment to pull out and say that this week, what happened this week, that is of significance in relationship to the till case. Anybody paying attention . Yeah . Go ahead. They passed antilynching legislation. Yeah. They passed the emmett till antilynching act as a hate crime under federal law. And this legislation is coming 65 years after tills lynching and 120 years after Congress First considered antilynching legislation. So that is 120 years of Congress Failing to, choosing not to pass such legislation. In 2005, congress did see fit to apologize. Apologize to the descendants of lynching victims. But it took another 15 years for the senate and the house to pass this legislation and then it will go to the white house for signing by president trump. So you could imagine that there are a lot of responses going on to this. And the prominent one is why now. And people are asking is this commemorative, is this a cause for celebration . Or is this a cause for concern . Is this preemptive . What is the context now that is making this bill feasible within congress when it has been 120 years that hasnt been the case. So i just want to take a moment to point out ida b. Wells. Because people in talking about this antilynching legislation are asking, what about wells . Ida b. Wells was an activist and journalist in the late 19th century who publicly and doggedly consistently was condemning lynching. Most notably through her publication of red record. And she did this at great personal cost. Her printing outfit was burned down. She was run out of town. So you could understand why some people say that till shouldnt be attached but where is the recognition of ida b. Wells. And well come back to wells in talking about montgomery. So going back to the origin points here, i just wanted to point that out. Today well focus only montgomery bus boycott and i want to put that in the time line that we were talking about or that i showed you montgomery busboy c boycott. We have the brown versus board of education in 1954, then brown versus board of education ii. And then the till lynching. You have rosa parks being arrested on december 1st of 1955. That was a thursday. And then the following monday, on december 5th, the montgomery bus boycott begins. Thats a little bit of context for you to put it in a visual form. So, were going to use the readings today to consider the busboy cot. Well continue that conversation in our next lecture as well. And certainly if people have questions. So, i want to focus on montgomery because more than any of the other origin events that weve talked about, montgomery is most often cited as the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement within the popular narrative. And i find the popular narrative of the boycott itself within this larger narrative to be somewhat problematic. And i want to talk i want to dig into that myth, or that story of the montgomery bus boycott. In doing that, i think an effective way of doing that is looking to a central figure in that myth, rosa parks, right . I want to look at what i call the mythic rosa parks. So, i want to make a real distinction between rosa parks as a person, as a woman and then rosa parks as an icon, right . Were going to be talking about both. Those are two separate things. So, i want to ask you if you can give me some you may have a lot more information about rosa parks. We have a lot more Information Available to us now. If you could give me a sense of the popular narrative, the enduring narrative, or the idea of rosa parks as you likely learned when you were in Elementary School, or typically celebrated through black History Month . Anybody want to go out there . I think what i learned about her in Elementary School is she refused to give up her seat. Shes an ordinary woman coming from work, and it was just a man manifest. Shes a martyr is how it portrayed. She definitely became a martyr in that sense. I guess what i learned about it is she was the catalyst for this movement as if she was the only woman or person that had been arrested for not giving up their seat, as if it was a single incident that happened and it was her. Yeah, i mean, as much as the montgomery bus boycott is seen as the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, shes seen as the beginning of the bus boycott, right . So, thats where that title, mother of the Civil Rights Movement comes from, right . On our best day, how many of us can hope for such a title. Going off of both those points, shes typically she was at least typically described as this elderly woman. She was 42. I need that not to be elderly. Shes not elderly. Shes described as an elder saems stress with tired feet who single handedly sparked the modern black freedom movement. I dont want to deny her any of her importance. This is the rosa parks that with the best of intentions my mother introduced me to when i was very young. I held on to that picture all the way through college, all the way through history classes in college, well into graduate studies. It was only when i started doing my own research as a masters student that that image started to crumble. And not just crumble, become really frustrating to me because i think that this ideal of parks really us fr really frustrates and negates her actually history and her activist history. We have historians that have really worked to break down that idea to give us a more complicated picture. I want to point to these two books in particular. Anybody read any of them . All right. This could be new for you. All right. So, at the end of the dark street and the rebellious life of mrs. Rosa parks already tells you thats going to be a corrective narrative in that sense. If you have a desire to know more about rosa parks as a woman, as an activist, these are great sources. Im drawing on them some to do that with you today. So, i want to use this use these books or use the information i have from books in my own research to kind of deconstruct that myth. And i am going to ask you if you know more about rosa parks or if what youre holding on to you can just raise your hands. You dont even have to answer. For how many people youre holding on to this kind of typical iconic idea that gets celebrated in black History Month . For how many of you is that the image that youre most familiar with . Wow. Okay. All right. Thats really thats really not surprising because i think that it circulates in musings, newspapers, definitely in Elementary Schools, Childrens Books and all those. Its not surprising to me, but it is troubling. Its very troubling. What i want to point out is how simple and inaccurate that representation is. So, ill just start at the beginning. Beginning in the 1930s, rosa parks was campaigning on behalf of the scottsboro boys with her husband, right . Melanie brought up the skots bow row boys who were accused of raping two white women on a train. And it was this long drawn out case in which many of them spent years and years and years in prison. So, rosa parks was actively campaigning on their behalf, which is notable, because also as melody brought up, these were africanamericans who were defended by the communist party, right . So, right there, thats a subversive kind of activity. Dont worry about writing this down. I will send this to you immediately after. Listen to the story. Just listen to the story, particularly if its the first time youve actually had any encounter to this woman. I promise you. All right. So, she sat as the lookout on the steps to her own home while there were naacp meetings held in her house. She had never seen so many guns on her kitchen table, until those meetings were held in her house. She joined the naacp in 1943, either the second or third woman in montgomery to do that. So, i should say the montgomery chapter of the naacp. She became the secretary almost immediately because nobody else wanted to do it. That in and of itself, as a woman, was unusual in montgomery at that time. Less and less unusual one of the other women of the two or three was her mother. So, you could see that theres some modeling going on there. This is key. In her role as the secretary of the naacp, in the 1940s in montgomery, alabama, or in alabama, she travelled around the state by herself to gather evidence or testimony from blacks who had witnessed or experienced white on black violence. Think about that, right . How many of you have seen rosa parks, a picture of her . Shes not a formidable woman, right . Shes a black woman traveling by herself through the jim crow south to get material that many whites or Authority Figures would have been upset about. This is a dangerous thing she is doing, quite in contrast to the image we have of her. Beginning in the 1940s, she organized on the behalf of sexually abused black women, sexually assaulted, abused black women. Very openly. Very openly. Thats what the oharris book is about. The oharris talked about her or traces the history of parks. Black women abused largely by black men and white supremacy. She made repeated attempts to vote in the 1940s. As well talk about, this too could be a very dangerous act at this point in time. She protested segregation on the buses before 1955. In fact, she was kicked off a bus by the same bus driver almost a decade earlier for resisting the activities of that bus or the instructions of that bus driver. She was a featured speaker at the naacp state convention in 1948. I dont think thats an image we have of rosa parks. I found an audio clip of her on a new york radio interview, and i remember hearing her voice for the first time and being like, of course, shes southern. It just surprised me. It just surprised me because i had never heard her. I never heard her, right . But here she is speaking before a convention crowd in 1948. Its very public. Very public. She trained he Highlander Folk School in tennessee. This is before her arrest. S arrest. She did a twoweek training in desegregation at the Highlander Folk School which was tagged as communist. It wasnt a communist school. It was a leadership training institution. And it was precisely because of brown versus board of education that these workshops were being held. It was to help learn how to facilitate that process, hopefully peacefully. She never fully embraced nonviolence. And shes on the record about that. Shes on the record about not knowing if threatened with violence or messed with in a particular way if she could turn the other cheek. She certainly supported some of the nonviolent activities of the Civil Rights Movement as we think about it, but she never fully embraced nonviolence. So, for how many of you, raise of hands, is that surprising. Thats, again, troubling to me, but not at all surprising. So, my question then, and i am going to allow for a couple of answers here. Why do you think theres no right answer, right . Because you are youre the ones who know. Why do you think theres such an investment or that that mythic pa part, as im calling her, has survived so long well after her death. She died in 2005. Why do you think that has such currency, that idea . I think when i learned about this, i think i was in Elementary School, so i was 8, 9, 10 years old. And i think that its a lot easier for her to be a onedimensional character in the story that we tell children. And when were first learning about this history than it is for her to be a complex human being that had more to offer the story than just sitting on a bus. Yeah, yeah. Morgan. To me, its also thinking about how a lot of us, again, learn about this in Elementary School, very strategic on Public Education and educators rule in general to tell children and to push this narrative that black people get what they want if they are nonviolent and theyre pacified. There are so many world events that we learn about that are achaefed through violent means in European Countries and just by white people generally, revolutionariwise. And then this obviously is a catalyst for or has been remembered as acatalyst for this Larger Movement and were being told this person is this nonviolent peaceful old tired woman when thats not the case. And i think thats very strategic. Its very politically significant, if not intended. Others . Anyone else want to speak to that . Yeah. Yeah, i also think this narrative presents her as a political agent, which is something that even broader for women of all races, thats something thats not really mentioned, that shes someone who was very strategic in what she did. Even in terms of what organizations she associated with. I think it just shows her agency in a way that we are reluctant to even talk about regarding women. Yeah, and remember i told you to draw bradley forward in terms of thinking about thoughts and actions she would take in the moment. Thats just months beforehand. So, we also have to think about how parks might have been presenting herself. Were going to talk more about that at a different time. But i agree with all of you to an extent. I mean, the montgomery bus boycott i think is one of our greatest National Fairy tales. Right. Its just a really nice story in its popular form of good versus evil, david and goliath, right, and that, you know, good americans bear out, right . Theres no aberrant racest southerners, but good americans bear out in that sense. I think when you have a fairy tale, you have very simple good versus bad and rosa parks is the hero along with Martin Luther king. Theyre the hero of this fairy tale. How many of you learned about rosa parks for the first time in Elementary School . Okay. How many of you learned anything else about her after . Okay. Its always interesting to me because i think youre right in the sense that people think children need simple characters, right . And to me, the sad thing is thats when i think, you know, minds, attitudes are very flexible and can take in complex information. I often use the example of when i was in graduate school, this Childrens Book came out about Martin Luther king. And my professor brought it in and he read it to us. And it said on april 4th, 1968, Martin Luther king died, which is not inaccurate, right . But he was assassinated, right . That showed a hesitancy to deal in that material. Then i point people to grimes fairy tales and everything which are horrifying and scary, right. Its this idea we think we need sanitized stories for children. I think that would be fine, but that would be okay if there wasnwas any other point where youre learning and building on that story. Im sure this is different in different regions and different schools and stuff. But my experience is that most people dont then have more education on the Civil Rights Movement and or rosa parks. Yeah, sorry . So, i learned about rosa parks when i was young and preschool probably and then also again in Elementary School. And then later i think in middle school or high school i learned about how she wasnt the first person to not give up her seat. I think thats something thats really interesting. One of the articles, the origins of montgomery bus boycott said that rosa parks had the character we needed to get the city to rally behind us. For me, that was a moment. I was always curious, why rosa parks. This happened before rosa parks which the article laid out. I thought it was interesting that we focus specifically on her and then dont talk about the back story behind her when were learning about her. Yeah, let me speak to that. Lets go through that. One of the reasons i focus on the symbolic mythic rosa parks or start there is because i think shes propping up this bigger myth of the montgomery myth, and i would argue that that is also obscuring information about the Montgomery Movement and the montgomery bus boycott that would be really helpful to us now. Information about organizing, information about how they funded things, information about what formed their theories or their strategies, right . So, i want to speak to that because thats a huge question. Why . Why, why, why do we not have that other information. So, the montgomery myth. Here are aspects of it. Dont worry about writing it down. I will send it to you. Rosa parks is an accidental activist. Shes had enough. Shes tired. Shes going home. Im not taking in anymore. Shes the first one that took that stand, that the boycott is unprecedented, and that the boycott is spontaneous. Thats part of what allows us to have that container idea of the Civil Rights Movement. Suddenly there was organizing on this issue of civil rights. Martin luther king, jr. , it should say, organized the boycott. The masses followed sing. The masses walked, which they did. Boycotts ended segregated buses and that the boycott was short. I just want to tick through those and just aspeak to those. The first one, being this idea that parks was the first, that she was the first black woman to resist segregated Public Transportation. Thats not even true there are examples from the previous century, one of them being ida b. Wells, who protested on railroad. And sojourner truth. And ples si. But thats where plessy versus ferguson comes from. We have examples of the africanamericans segregating Public Transportation before. And in birmingham, alabama, we have two examples. Pauline kargt in 1943, she was a teenager. And when she a bus driver treated her poorly, she spit on him. She cursed him, and then she spent 30 days in jail as a teenager. Theres an incident of another woman who is nameless in the record who got into a shoving match with a white man on the bus. She cursed him while she was riding the bus. And when she got off the bus, she was arrested and spent time in jail. In montgomery to the points that several of you have made, theres several documented incidences of women doing exactly what parks did. And some of them did it more than once. First one hearing be worthy. She argued with the driver, got off the bus. The driver followed her, spit on her, beat her, and according to eyewitness testimony, she gave as much as she got. I dont know what happened to her, but im thinking she spent time in jail. Henrietta sat in front of a white couple on a bus. She was targeted by the bus driver. But she avoided jail in that sense because the white couple agreed to move. So, what you need to understand about segregated buses, generally speaking there are ten seats in the front, ten in the back. Or 16 and 16. Whites, blacks, and this nomans land. But depending on who was on the bus, the seats went to the white patrons and the africanamericans had to move whenever instructed to. Whats important here is understanding that bus drivers had police powers. They had police powers. So, that makes e aresisting dou risky. They could do what a Police Officer could do in those circumstances, including violence. Two other examples, rosa parks, as i said, she resisted a decade before she resisted. And one of the worst cases is viola white who in 1943 refused to give up her seat, she was beaten, arrested, jailed, found guilty, appealed the case, and as reprisal, white Police Officers kidnapped her 16yearold daughter and raped her in a cemetery. That was for her resisting. So, it tells you the significance of crossing that line, of crossing that line. And then we also have, as the article pointed out, in the same year, in 1955, you have a 15yearold teenager who refuses to give up her seat on the bus and the naacp and everyone rallies around her in march of 1955 until she winds up pregnant. And then they back off. In april of that year, so a month later, browder has an incident on a bus where she is arrested for resisting to give up her seat. Remember that name. And then in mary louise smith, who is an 18yearold africanamerican girl who refuses to give up her seat also before rosa parks. We dont know about her because her father came down and paid her fine and she was out before the naacp knew about it. They have said things to the effective. We werent in the inner circle. We were too dark. We were too poor. The smith family were catholics which also put them outside the bounds of the circle in that sense. We have at least three women who have done the same thing in the same year as rosa parks, right . So, we need to think about we need to just scratch off that rosa parks was the first. Lets just take that off. Yes. When you say that theyre too dark, too poor, are you saying they couldnt be the figure behind the boycott . Right. That kind of movement. Right. Thats what the smiths believe and theres evidence support that. You have parks and nixon both saying we cant use her, the media will tear us up. I cant help but see it as them not really seeing rosa parks as a threat, more innocent. I think if she was wearing a black panther uniform and a barre, that would be a completely different story. And of course her skin complexion has something to do with it. She doesnt look like the traditional. I dont think she was seen as much of a threat, just super innocent in that case. Yeah. And theres definitely evidence. And again, parks says this herself, right . When she is arrested, e. D. Nixon is like hallelujah. Hes like this is the one. Shes the one. They all gather at her house to convince her of that. Whos against that . Her husband. Shes not an idiot. He knows how dangerous that is. Do you think that robinson and nixon kind of forged that narrative or made her kind of the figure of the Civil Rights Movement thats been problem gaited since the end . Thats a great question. I dont think robinson did. I think parks did and nixon did. Robinson was angry. She was really angry when they backed off colvin. Colvin was a young girl that parks had worked with because parks was in charge of the naacp youth activities. So, they had a relationship in that sense. When they backed off colvin, she was really upset. Theyre waiting. Robinson has been fighting this fight for a decade, right . And when the decision, the brown decision, comes out and she writes to the mayor, like, you know, just reminding you, africanamericans make up 75 of the riders. And if we were to actually boycott, that would be really bad for the bus company, right . I mean, thats a threat, right . To the degree to which she can do it. I dont think we can tag that on robinson so much, but i think we can tag it on gender politics at the time and certainly also politics of color because its not incidental that shes a light skinned woman and shes chosen all these things, allow for this idea of middle class respectability. They all allow for idea of middle class respectability. Despite the fact that rosa parks is absolutely of the working class. And arguably of the working poor. She doesnt have that veneer, right . So, thats part of she doesnt she hasnt she does not have a demeanor that is radical. She has a radical activist past, but she doesnt have a demeanor that is radical. So, theres definitely image politics going on here. And we can decide whether or not we fault them for that or that theyre looking at the reality of their situation. And weve talked in here about the trap of getting into an image politics game, right . So, one of the things we can consider is what are the affects of rosa parks having been the symbol . I think that goes back to Morgans Point of who is worthy of justice, right . We talked about that with maimmy till bradley as well. Another thing i want you to keep in mind is the question often comes up why women . Why was it primarily women . And it was primarily women who were doing this. And all you need to know is emmett till, right . I mean that theres a bigger history to do that. The same type of resistance. Youre seeing the women get beaten. To do the same resistance as an africanamerican man would with been even riskier. And the africanamerican men werent riding approximate buses as much. If there was a car in the family, men took it to their job. Women were on the bus primarily. Also because they were domestics. They were on the bus in a greater capacity and often with white people. So, those lines were kind of blurred because they might go do the Grocery Shopping with the children of their white employer. And in that capacity, they sat up front, right . They sat up front because that white baby wasnt going in the back. So, theres a little bit more blurring of the line there. And theres stories of africanamerican men, often if a scuffle would start on a bus with an africanamerican woman, they would get up and go out the back door and suffered psychically for that and were criticized for it. She would get up and go out the back door because they understood how loaded that situation was. So, i also want to go to the next idea of this movement being unprecedented and spontaneous. And i want to try and trouble that or just refute it. Theres examples within alabama that refute that idea. Theres a boycott in 1900 or 1900 of the trollies. There werent buses at this point in time. The trollies, it lasts about two years. Its not as total as the montgomery bus boycott is. The montgomery bus boycott is 95 successful among africanamericans. If 75 of your clientele is africanamerican and 95 of them stay off the buses, this crippled the bus company. They had to keep raising fares. They were very much on the brink of financial ruin. And yet time after time after time again they refused to segregate the buses. Thats important to think about, to understand. So, montgomery blacks held a boycott of the buses in 1941 around an Easter Holiday event that happened, and they said that they were often bussed out but then dropped far away and had to walk in the rain and everything. So, they boycotted the buses. That was just a very short event. And in baton rouge in 1953, there was a bus boycott that people in montgomery very much took information from, right . Thats when i say, if you have a bus boycott narrative thats as simple as the one we have, you cant do what people in montgomery did in terms of the baton rouge boycott where they took information and learned from that to organize their own boycott. And then this idea of it being spontaneous. I think they successfully deconstruct that idea. When you look at when the article was written, in 1985, so when i ask you how many have a more complex idea of rosa parks or the montgomery bus boycott and youre telling me in the year 2020 that its still coming down this way, thats troubling because weve had this information for a long time. People, educators, weve had this information for a long time. And the womens Political Council just blows out that out of the water, the idea that it was spontaneous, that they decided at the last moment. We know from garro that there was a plan in place. At least a loose plan. And that robinson was just waiting. And there had been many, many meetings between the wpc and city authorities to address this segregated seating with all these half measures. Let us come in the front door at least. Have more black bus drivers. It doesnt even necessarily have to be that its an integrated bus at this point in time, but its no, no, no to all of those things s things, right . So, the question i have then is why didnt we know anything about the womens Political Council until 1985, and then why dont you know anything about her, right . Why do you think we dont know anything about her or anything about the womens Political Council this far . What is that . I cant do the math. 35 years later. What do you think accounts for that . I think part of it is the image of Martin Luther king, jr. , as the leader and the figure head in all of this. In a sense, the montgomery bus boycott is the origin point for him. So, then if the story is not like he was the one leading this, he was the one pushing this forward, then that kind of makes things difficult for his narrative. Right. Very much. And thats in keeping with what was said before about rosa parks and that simple idea. Did i see another hand there . Okay. Absolutely. And then the other thing that we have to understand is that africanamericans on the ground are forging some of these ideas because it is politically expedient and safer to do so. And thats important to consider when youre thinking about a marginalized group or a marginalized group or an oppressed group trying to advance their politics within any particular historical moment. The africanamerican woman that were talking about, particularly women like joann robinson, shes an activist but a also a middle class black woman in the south. Im not saying that because she was limited. She also has gender ideologies about how she should behave as a middle class woman in the south. A lot of africanamerican women were putting the black men in front. But theres some other practical reasons for why they could do that because, one, they think thats the image that should be out there. It makes their africanamerican men look stronger, right, doesnt emasculate them in a way. And robinson has a job. She has a job at a university, right . We learn i love this. This is what i remember learning about robinson and her distributing this leaflet in the middle of the night, getting her students to go to her university and memographing this saying this happened to another person, we cant let this happen anymore, boycott the buses on monday. She blankets the black sections of towns with this to the point that white ministers in church on sunday saying whats happening . Where is this coming from . And the news reports on it, the Montgomery Advertiser reports on it that sunday afternoon. Where does this all come from . She does it all in the middle of night. She gets in trouble for it. She gets in trouble for it because shes used University Property to do it. But the do it yourself kind of nature of this, she says she already had it written to a large degree. It was just waiting to be graphed. Theres a reason she did it behind the scenes and that at the time, when the Montgomery Advertiser is like whos responsible for this, the wpc wasnt like, hey, its us. And in fact, that friday thursday night they distribute these leaflets. That friday, all the africanamerican male ministers get together and black leaders get together to talk about what to do. And that becomes more the site of the organizing or the thrust behind that. So, then theres this idea which is connected of Martin Luther king organizing the boycott and that everybody was following his order. And that is partially because he was among that group of black male leaders. Its also because he was elected as the president on monday afternoon, the day that the boycott starts. Hes elected as the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which is the organization that was the official representative of the boycott. Why do you think hes elected . Anybody know anything about king at this point in time . Hes 26 years old. Hes just moved to montgomery. As a minister, he kind of provides or a reverend, he provides a level of respectability to the movement. Everybody agrees, hes got a phd at 26, articulate theres a coded word articulate, presents well, definitely. But hes also new. He kind of gets pushed out front because he doesnt have any of the relationships, the patronage relationships that some of the other black male leaders do. So, hes not loyal to anyone yet. And if he messes up, well, they dont lose something, right . So, im not saying that he wasnt willing to do this or volunteered, but now, think about it. I cant remember who said it. This is also the origin point for Martin Luther king. Is that you, catherine . Yeah. 26 years old. No way did he know what this was going to mean for him, right . How hes going to be launched on to the national stage. Partly because nobody thought this boycott was going to last more than a day. The reason that it was that monday was because thats when rosa parks was going to her trial, right . Nobody thought that this boycott was going to last more than a day. The other reason that people think that king was the leader is because at the mass meetings like the one that was described in the newspaper that you had, hes upfront, right . And his audience is the masses, right s right . So, its very easy for outside media that did come and film this, film it, report on it, to see him as the leader. In fact, at this first mass meeting, thats when this is a picture of, rosa parks, the presenter and Martin Luther king says, this person, were so lucky shes the face of our movement, the person thats not a disturbing factor in the community, which is totally like shes totally a disturbing factor in the community. Shes standing there and she says, should i Say Something . And the minister says, youve done enough. Have a seat. Youve done enough. I always find that moment interesting. She does, she sits down. And im i just wonder what the dynamics were there, if she sits down because she takes their gift of you dont have to do anymore, youve done enough. Let us just recognize you. Or if its like we got this, we got this. But she sits down. You see the mantle shift from parks to king that night. And you also see this as the official debut of the parks renault, this not disturbing, middle class, respectable woman. From that point forward, the Media Campaign begins. And i told you that the till trial was one of the first media dramas of the Civil Rights Movement as we think about it. The montgomery bus boycott was a sustained media event in many ways, a sustained staged drama. So, part of the reason that people see him as the leader is because hes standing out front all of the time. But throughout the boycott, he and the women who had been arrested before and he are saying its not me. Im not the leader. Im a spokesperson, but the masses are leading this movement. And Claudette Colvin says at the time, the leaders are just we ourselves when shes asked about king being a leader. The leaders are just we ourselves. Shes still a tieenager at this point in time, right . And again, king is not refuting that. She considers herself lucky to be representing them. But because of the gender politics, but because of the media image and how its being positioned, theres this idea that hes the leader. But its interesting to know that on monday, that monday, december 5th, everybody gathers at this mass meeting to assess how its gone. The Montgomery Improvement Association has been formed that afternoon. And the idea is that its a boycott, its very successful, they show their strength. And all of the people in the audience are like were not going back. Were not going back on those buses, especially the maids and the cook. Were not going back on those buses. Were not suffering that humiliation anymore. This is no longer, this is a show of force in that sense. The masses decide that night, you know, were going to continue this. Were going to continue this. And then it becomes a matter of how you need to figure out how to run a bus boycott, how you have to run that. Because right it says right here masses walked i put that as an aspect of the montgomery myth. Absolutely africanamericans were walking during the bus boycott, during all sorts of weather for miles and miles. Theres testimony of people talking about how they have to walk miles. You see pictures of the buses with one white lady. Theres a really iconic photograph of one white lady sitting there looking out and otherwise the bus completely empty. Theres also africanamericans threatening other africanamericans if they get on the bus. If they had to walk anywhere to job, that this would have been as successful. That would have been a burden that would be an really difficult. So, looking to the baton rouge example, they form a car pool, a very intricate car pool thats organized and run by the Montgomery Improvement Association. And many of the drivers are middle class black women who are either housewives of elite black men or teachers at the universities in that sense. So, theyre trooifidriving peop around. They also have the black taxis do free rides or reduced fare rides until the city makes that illegal. So, theres this really organized car pool that is happening. At the center of it, they need funding. They need to put gas in the cars. Theres a woman recognized, a cook, an activist in montgomery. She formed the nowhere club. It was like the name was kind of a joke, so when people would say where she sold all these sandwiches. Where did you get these sandwiches . Nowhere, nowhere. Its a hidden transcript kind of thing. So, shes getting credit for that. But they have this infrastructure behind the boycott. Most of which is manned by women, including rosa parks who is fired immediately after she takes her stand on the bus. But shes fired. So, she and her husband and her husband is fired. So, she becomes one of the people who is organizing this boycott throughout the spring of 1956. So, its primarily women who are running these activities. None of this is visible though if you just have the saint rosa parks and suddenly the powers that be realize this is really wrong and they desegregated the buses, right . Theres a lot of work that went into it. Theres a book called daybreaker freedom. Theres no narrative. He just compiles all these documents about what was going on during the boycott. You see the inner office memos about events planned, things that they need, how theyre going to fund king going to different places to talk and things. So, theres a big, big machine behind the boycott. This is a huge one. Is the idea that the boycott, the montgomery bus boycott desegregated the buses. How many of you think thats true . Or have thought thats true . Youre like this is a trick question. How many of you think thats true . I wont say that its not true. This is a debatable question. But it did not officially end segregation on Public Transportation. Any guesses as to what would or did . Melody . I just assume since it was it lasted for like 382 days i think actually. So, i think if we look at it as a monetary perspective, how much money they were losing, and if they could sustain that. I think it was more so a monetary decision possibly. I think that is a very logical and reasonable guess. Its wrong. Because it should be, right . It should be. Like, of course, theyre crippling the bus company, right . And theyre making it very difficult for they have to keep reducing bus routes and everything. And the fact that that is not the answer, again, tells you how entrenched the city officials were, right . Yeah . Was it the civil rights in 1964 and finally no. But it was legislation. It was legislation. The browder versus gail. You remember browder . Browder versus gayle court case. This is another instance where this is i think a huge injustice. You have five plaintiffs. Eventually evetta reeves drops out because shes harassed so much. Looking at that list of plaintiffs, notice any absences . Whos not there . Rosa parks. Rosa parks isnt anywhere there. And she cant be. She can no longer be a test case because during her trial on the 5th, they changed what she was charged with. She was charged with violating the City Ordinance and not giving up her seat. The City Ordinance says that if there were seats available, africanamericans could sit on them. The state ordinance said that africanamericans had to obey whatever the bus said. So, it was amended in the middle of the trial, and then her lawyer went to appeal it because it was under appeal, she couldnt be the test case. So, shes not involved in this case. Any other absences you might notice here . Theres no men. And theres an appeal for men. Theres an appeal for men. And e. D. Nixon says at a Montgomery Improvement Association meeting, like, seriously guys . Youve been riding the apron strings, he says the apron strings, of these cooks and maids forever. None of you came . No one . Youre not going to put your name to this . Its interesting because the black male ministers, largely the leadership, were less vulnerable because their patronage were black people, right . They didnt have a business. They werent working at a university funded by white people. But so its all women. Its all women who have experienced arrest or harassment on the buses, including Claudette Colvin. Mary louise smith. These people that were considered not eligible, not the right fit for being the face of the movement. And they werent because none of you knew about them, right . You dont even know about this case, right . So, they werent the face of it. But this case goes forward. It starts february 1st in 1956. It goes forward. This is where you get all the testimony about women. These Court Documents are so useful because you have testimony from all these women about what happened to them. That brings in the other records about the arrest. You have them saying in a public court against the mayor and the city of montgomery, this happened to me, thats why im here. They keep asking me, this is where Claudette Colvin says the leaders are we ourselves. They keep finding out about king. Theyre pawns for king in a sense. The leaders are we ourselves. It starts in february. In june 1956, you have a ruling, 21 in favor of the plaintiffs on the grounds of that 14th amendment, right . City officials appeal. Theyre not giving up. The city officials appealed. November 13, the Supreme Court upholds that lower court ruling. City officials appeal. And this is part of what accounts for the fact that its 381 days. Africanamericans are like we are not going back on those segregated buses. December 20th, the Supreme Court, they didnt hear the case again. They said we wont consider the appeal. Weve decided this. So, that effectively ends the citys, you know, quest or attempt to stave off this desegregation of their city buses. The decree of that ruling reaches montgomery on december 20th, 1956. Africanamericans meet in their final mass meeting of the boycott and agree, okay, we got what we wanted. Well go on the buses tomorrow, december 21st, 1956. And in the morning,that morning, you know, cameras come from all over the country and they go to Martin Luther kings house and watch him and ralph abernathy, another prominent minister, walked to the nearest bus station at 5 00 in the morning. They take all these photographs that are very iconic now. At some point in the morning, someone says, what about that parks woman . Maybe we should get a photograph of her. So, they do go and find her. But shes an afterthought. So, even as shes become the face of the movement, because shes not the leader of the movement, she was the one that was relatively taken care of. And again, this is because during the entire year, every time she appears in a public setting in relationship to the boycott, shes with men, right . Very much the same way bradley was. E. D. Nixon is standing next to her, fred gray, her lawyer is standing next to her. Shes surrounded by men in suit and ties. So, she does speak after certain events and stuff, but shes right next to these authoritative looking africanamerican men throughout the entire thing. So, they do become seemingly the strength of that movement. So, i think that its really an injustice that no one knows about these women. Browder was she had six children. She was a seamstress, she was a wife and mother, a midwife. She went back to get her bachelors degree in her 30s, then she went and got her masters degree. She was an activist. They didnt pick her the first time because they didnt think she could withstand a cross examination. I dont know why. Thats why they didnt use her as a test case. She becomes a lead of this case. Nobody knows about her. Nobody knows about her. To that end, what melody brought up, is this idea that the boycott was short. Just out of curiosity, because youve all admitted not all of you. But most of you admitted you had a skewed idea of this. How long do you think most people, if not yourself, thought the boycott was . Most people think the boycott, how long do you think they think it is. You can just yell out a number. Couple weeks. A few weeks. Yeah, yeah. Thats definitely. Thats what i grew up thinking. Yeah, yeah. And i think what allows for that is kind of that fairy tale idea, right . Because again something so wrong wouldnt take that long. So, with the browder versus gayle case though, my question to you is did the boycott desegregate the buses . You dont have enough information to make a, this is where im planting my flag. But without the boycott, what do you think . It is not what the browder versus gayle is what put the nail in the coffin of plessi versus ferguson. This is a huge ruling, a huge ruling. Arguably more important or as important as brown, right . As brown versus board of education. Huge ruling. Do you think that the boycott was necessary . To that ruling . I think it was because i think the boycott, while it wasnt an illegal action or might have not produced might have not taken down separate versus equal, i think it definitely changed peoples perceptions of what was happening with separate versus equal. And a Media Campaign, it reverberate throughout the country. So, i think you change peoples hearts and change peoples minds. And maybe that is playing into the myth, but you definitely had alliship grow probably in the north which is probably what people boycotting needed. To that extent, you talked about how they were producing cases that had been lost in courts about buses. So, i think that the boycott was necessary to help with media push, to finalize, like you said, the nail in the coffin. A couple failures. Anyone else . Okay. Yeah, i mean, i think thats a very strong argument. The Supreme Court or Court Officials arent operating in a vacuum, right . So, to understand that Public Opinion may be moving in a different direction, and theres also maybe the legal grounds, right . But to understand that Public Opinion may be moving in a different direction, which is demonstrated by a northern response, thats too simple, but by a northern response. This is when the Movement Goes national, right . This is when the Movement Goes national. People are sending in money from all over the world. The Movement Goes international actually. Theres political cartoons that you can find in french newspapers talking about the boycott and everything. The Movement Goes national and international in that sense. If we think again and put it in a cold war context too, thats part of the reason people outside the United States arent interested anyway. And it inspires a similar boycott in south africa. So, people are paying attention to this in a way that movements hadnt been they hadnt coalesced or hadnt gotten that attention before. Why do you think this one got so much attention . Its not that africanamericans in a city hadnt organized around some action. Its not even that that hadnt happened in montgomery before. Why did this become a National Media event . The answer is implied in the question. Because they had media available. You cant take out the fact that we have this idea of a movement coming in the postwar moment without considering what those circumstances were. Wasnt just a cold war thing. Thats something to consider. We have new technologies. And this is the first example of a movement thats considered nonviolent direct action. Its not the first time that strategy was used, but this is when that becomes publicized. The leaders, Martin Luther king, recognized spokesperson, are talking about nonviolent direct action. And were going to talk about nonviolence more in terms of a strategy, in relationship to other strategies that come later in a sense. But its i need to be careful when i say this because i do not want to dismiss the idea that the people participating in the boycott were dedicated to a doctrine of nonviolence for moral, civil, principled reasons. But its also pageantry, right . Its also pageantry. And when you have media cameras and you have journalists coming down and you see just this crowds and crowds, row after row after row of africanamericans walking through the city walking up to the court buildings. Thats an image of blackness that hasnt been main streamed before that point in time, right . And subsequent activists take note, right . Were going to talk about that when we talk about little rock and birmingham. They take note. So, this nonviolent direct action where certainly this is a strategy that had been used in other moments of their movements become something that people understand as defining the movement. That comes out of montgomery in that sense. So, it has this National Presence that also to your earlier point, morgan, its not scare to the segregationists it is scary. But its not scary because theres no angry black people, theres no weapons, right . Nobody is demanding theyre totally demanding. Nobody is demanding. Theyre just peacefully refusing, right . Theyre peacefully refusing. And theyre litigated against many times during that year for doing that. The boycott is considered illegal. They take trump or trump. Woah they take king and they put him into they charge him on conspiracy, conspiracy grounds, and then they bring all these other people who are considered to be including robinson and parks. How many of you have seen the picture of parks like a mug shot of parks, rosa parks . Thats not from when she was arrested. Thats from when she had to participate in this conspiracy trial and everybody at the trial is saying king is not leading this boycott. Again, this is just we ourselves. You have all of these africanamerican people in montgomery show up at the courthouse. They find out that king has been arrested. And they say wheres my warrant . This has never happened before where africanamerican people arent afraid to go to the jail. They get in their best their be they drive to the jail, all sorts of more working class people line the courthouse steps to make sure they go in and up. They turn themselves in. Thats a shift in the relationship of africanamericans towards law enforcement. You dont take yourself to a jail as an africanamerican in the jim crow south. They show up. And it takes away some of the leverage that the city authorities have in that sense. Throughout the boycott, they charge someone bombs kings house, they put an injunction against the free taxis. Theyre trying to cut the legs out from underneath the boycotters. But unsuccessful in that sense. I think all of that pageantry is what allows for the idea that we have of the montgomery bus boycott as being short, an action of martyrs and saints with Martin Luther king marching the masses to freedom and the wall comes tumbling down in this sense. And it starts a freedom movement. You can see why i kind of find that problematic because this isnt a useful history. Its inspiring, right . And many people find it compelling and inspiring and thats important. Thats important. You dont want to rip down a story or myth without putting Something Else there. And i think that if you have an idea about who is organizing, how the organizing, how they were successful in this, they were successful. This is one of the more successful social movements in history, right . At least in u. S. History and at least in the 20th century. They were success. But if you dont know anything about it and if king and parks appear to be these figures, again, who on your best day can be as saintly or courageous as king and parks, as these things make them appear. And they certainly were courageous, right . But they were people with complex things and pasts in that sense and put into these situations for a myriad of reasons, a myriad of reasons. And then you start to think, oh, that is possible. Lets look at what they did. Of course, we cant take their strategies and map them into the 21st century, right . But we can take their strategies and adjust for our historical circumstances. Thats a useful history. This isnt a useful history as far as im concerned. If we put this here, if i give you this back, this timeline, i want you to have a sense of the bus boycott timeline. Ill send this to you. Dont worry about it right now. Going backwards. I also want to point out parks role. You have parks at high lander before she got on the bus, before she made her stand, right . And this is important because people always say she was either a plant or she didnt mean to, it was she was inspired by her tired feet. She doesnt have to be an naacp plant. She was entirely inclined what she did on the bus that day because of her activist self to do that. And then you have the Supreme Court ruling that ends the bus boycott. And i want to point out all of these other women, just make sure that ill end here. You have the symbolic mythic rosa parks propping up this montgomery myth, right . And then the other thick thng t were going to continue next time and through several other classes, i would argue thats at the center of this more problematic popular era of the Civil Rights Movement. I think going back to the original question of why this isnt taught in schools, one point that cant be overlooked is not talking about the organization, not talking about the court case is showing how when were saying its inspirational, when youre talking to these young black kids, our Education System is pushing towards this agenda. When you dont bring about these specifics, the young black kids are in the class, if we organize were able to progress properly. But instead, the rhetoric and the agenda thats being pushed if youre peaceful and kind of quiet about it, that will happen. Through history weve seen thats not the way it happens. Another i think reason why its not ever spoken about is because if they do speak about it in its truest form it might ignite a different feeling to make a difference and to align with each other. Im sure that the case in many cases. I would also say that i didnt have time here to tell you anything about the brown case. We talked about the decision. You dont know anything about the nine children who were involved in the brown nine children. Youve dont know anything about them. Thats not sexy. The decision was sexy. The boycott was sexy, in that sense. The details part of the reason you should question whether or not theres a movement now, right . Were not seeing sexy. Were not seeing pageantry stuff, maybe. That doesnt mean theres not organizing going on, right . The payne article, part of the reason i gave that to you, he said men led but women organized. You may have to consider your ideas of what leadership is and what organizing is. I think the npc troubling his thesis there. Only if you allow yourself to consider what do they mean by leadership . What do they mean by organizing . I was going to quickly say, while i was reading the emmett till and the bus boycott readings the past two classes, i drew a lot of comparison in my own observation to mothers of the movement and how theyre a huge part of black lives matter. I dont think they get enough credit or as leaders in the movement as they should. And they relate to bradley and also in this situation like the women were the ones that built this infrastructure that allowed them to boycott. So just kind of drawing comparisons to today. I was thinking about those mothers. And well talk more about this. Well talk more about this. The need for people on the ground in the mid20th century to keep their activities secret and the consequences of that. But i told you earlier about this book all black lives matter. That gets into all of the details. It tells you whats going on right now. And its the first time reading something that i had some optimism. Im not seeing it. Im not seeing it. Because people have adopted different ideas of how to approach this. Im not seeing it as publicly or in the media to such a degree. It doesnt mean its not happening or resulting in some victories, right . I got to let you go. Ill see you guys next time. Youre watching American History tv. Every weekend on cspan3, explore our nations past. Cspan3, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Weeknights this month, were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight, San Diego State University Professor lectures on the vietnam war. He looks at the conflict from u. S. Military escalation in 1965 to the fall of saigon ten years later and the competing interests of the americans, chinese and soviets in the region. Watch tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern. Enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan3. American history tv on cspan3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend. Coming up this Labor Day Weekend, saturday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on the civil war, historians discuss how we remember the civil war and whether to remove or contextualize confedera contextualize monuments. Well preview native american photographs. At 8 00 p. M. On the presidency, a look at president ial retreats including abraham lincolns summer cottage, herbert hoovers fishing camp and stories of the can he understand, clintons and obamas in marthas vineyard. At 8 00 p. M. Eastern, august marked the 75th anniversary of the bombings of hiroshima and n nagasaki. Exploring the american story. Watch American History tv this Labor Day Weekend on cspan3. Just before world war ii, radio was gaining popularity much like