General Discussion

bigtree

(85,977 posts) Wed Dec 5, 2018, 11:22 AM Dec 2018

Today marks the start of one of the most impactful and successful boycotts in American history

Legal Defense Fund @NAACP_LDF 23m23 minutes ago

Today marks the start of one of the most impactful and successful boycotts in American history. #OTD 40,000 Black employees walked to work, some traveling as far as 20 miles.

Legal Defense Fund @NAACP_LDF 37m37 minutes ago
In a 1956 interview with Rosa Parks on the Montgomery Bus Boycott she shared "many Negroes had been subjected to this type humiliation. I think the responded because each person experienced the same thing."

read the 1956 the full interview: https://bit.ly/2ARwXHx

in addition (from blackpast.org):

Montgomery Improvement Association (1955–1969)

Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was established on December 5, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama as a grassroots movement to fight for civil rights for African Americans and specifically for the desegregation of the buses in Alabama's capitol city. The MIA was the first of its kind, an organization based in the Deep South that specifically adopted a direct action tactic (a bus boycott) to challenge racial discrimination. The MIA was also the first predominately black civil rights organization to operate independently of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Although the MIA was not the catalyst to the Montgomery bus boycott, it played a significant role in the success of the protest and the desegregation of the buses, a year later. The MIA took responsibility for maintaining the boycott and the morale of the protesters and was in charge of providing alternative transportation for those who refused to ride the buses. Its car pools formed an effective means for the most impoverished black employees who could not walk to work to continue their employment.

The MIA was organized primarily by local civil rights leaders E.D. Nixon and Jo Ann Robinson. Association leaders soon realized that a young minister, Martin Luther King, Jr. of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, would be an articulate spokesperson for their organization and the boycott. Moreover King, as a minister of an all-black church, was much more capable of resisting attempts at retaliation from the white Montgomery business and political establishment. Moreover, the election of a minister to head a black civil rights organization in the South was unusual in 1955 although it would become far more common following the success of the boycott.

Dr. Martin Luther King Conducts Meeting of the
Montogmery Improvement Association, 1955

While King negotiated with city officials and the Montgomery Bus Company, other MIA leaders focused on fund-raising, garnering outside support, and formulating legal strategies. Finally, with the help of NAACP lawyers, in December 1956 the United States Supreme Court voided Alabama’s bus segregation laws in Browder v. Gayle. On December 21, 1956 black and white people seated themselves on city buses without regard to race.

After the MIA had succeeded in its original goal of desegregating the buses, it continued to engage in voter-registration drives, student sit-ins, and other civil rights protests until its demise in 1969...

read: https://blackpast.org/aah/montgomery-improvement-association-1955-1969

Melissa Brown @itsmelissabrown 6m6 minutes ago
On this day 63 years ago, tens of thousands of black Montgomery residents refused to board city buses for a one-day boycott. That night, Martin Luther King, Jr. encouraged the community to extend the boycott. They did, for 380 more days. https://t.co/61n7F82Q8M