December 19, 1956: Integrated Bus Suggestions

[ehrnst]

Source: Inez Jessie Baskin Papers, Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama

[Warpy]

1. The bus system in NC where I was

had been integrated for a long time. I can't imagine how insane the whole thing got in Alabama.

One problem in NC was the lunch counters in drug stores and dime stores. Black folks had to stand and get their order to go, then try to eat it on the street, still standing. It was insane.

After the sit ins dropped profits enough, the lunch counters dropped their silly regulations along with the state. Integration of lunch counters then progressed smoothly. I suppose there were quite a few sour white folks who refused to eat at Woolworth's or Kresge's any more but that was their problem. The counters were always busy and profits came back up.

[hfojvt]

2. "be understanding enough to turn an enemy into a friend"

Good advice for the ages.

Now if maybe half the people who honor Martin Luther King (with their lips) would even TRY to put it into practice ...

[indepat]

3. This native Tennessean worked in the Louisville, KY area during the summer following his freshman

in college and the first thing noticed was that African-Americans could sit in any available seat on the bus. Then fifteen months later, the white fathers even let an African-American student attend classes for graduate credit at our state-funded land-grant university. Imagine, it took society almost a full century after President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation before these small steps to equality took place.

[panader0]

4. Very cool