Montgomery Bus Boycott 45Highlander Folk School:
An influential labor and
civil rights training cen-
tre in Tennessee.Highlander Folk Schoolin the mountains of east Tennessee, a civil rights
training ground founded by Myles and Zilphia Horton. The workshop was
led by Septima Clark, a born teacher whose creative pedagogy and infinite
patience turned many illiterate blacks into potential voters. Parks was awed
by Clark, but still had no idea that she would catalyze Montgomery blacks
into challenging segregation.
On Thursday, 1 December, a weary Rosa Parks absentmindedly entered
Blake’s bus once more. Holding her purse and a grocery bag on her lap, she
sat right behind the white section. As the bus filled, a white man was left
standing. An indignant Blake yelled at Parks and three other blacks in her
row to step to the rear: ‘Move y’all, I want those two seats.’ When no one
budged, Blake sputtered, ‘Y’all better make it light on yourselves and let me
have those seats.’ The three blacks sitting next to Parks moved immediately.
Parks stayed put because she was ‘tired of giving in’ to racism, recalling how
her grandfather had stood up to the KKK and how Emmett Till had died
three months earlier. When Parks refused to move, a flustered Blake found
two policemen who quizzed her motives. Parks held her ground: ‘Why do
you all push us around?’ The policeman shrugged, replying, ‘I don’t know,
but the law is the law, and you’re under arrest.’
E.D. Nixon decided that the moment of truth had come. If blacks in
Montgomery were no longer willing to accept second-class citizenship, they
had to stand with Parks, a highly respected church member and veteran
freedom worker. As someone who worked with her hands but possessed
a middle-class demeanor, she appealed to blacks of different classes and
seemed less alarming to whites. Although her protest terrified her husband
Raymond – ‘The white folks will kill you, Rosa’ – she showed no fear. Nixon
and Parks believed that they could duplicate the Baton Rouge bus boycott
spearheaded by Baptist minister T.J. Jemison two years earlier. Although that
eight-day boycott ended without entirely eliminating segregated seating, it
served as a template for the bus boycotts that followed.
Boycott organizers had just four days to spread the word among blacks
before Rosa Parks faced a judge. Jo Ann Robinson composed an unsigned
leaflet calling for a bus boycott: ‘We must stop these arrests now. The next
time may be you, or you, or you....We are, therefore, asking every Negro
to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial.’ Risking dis-
missal, Robinson stayed up until 4 a.m. to run off thousands of copies on a
college mimeograph machine, and then enlisted volunteers to distribute them
in schools, stores, churches, barbershops, factories, and bars. On Friday night,
Nixon convened a meeting of black leaders to endorse the boycott. That Sunday,
pastors called the boycott ‘God’s movement’ and entreated their parishioners
‘to walk in dignity rather than ride in shame.’ When Nixon announced the
boycott to the city’s newspaper, most local blacks learned of the plan.
Clark, Septima(1898–
1987): Highlander Folk
School teacher and Citi-
zenship School organ-
izer who trained many
civil rights workers and
prepared unlettered rural
blacks to vote.