Montgomery Bus Boycott 49The black community proved far more resilient than white officials
believed possible. Working-class blacks walked miles to their jobs, some-
times in inclement weather. Others needed cars because they were enfeebled
or because the distance was too great. Black taxis lowered rates to the same
dime fare that buses charged and crammed riders in. When the police
commissioner blocked the fare reduction to render the taxi fleet useless, King
set up a private taxi system that made thousands of trips a day. Funds for the
$3,000-a-week operation poured in from local blacks who contributed as
much as 20 per cent of their income at mass meetings on Monday and Thursday
evenings. Women sold sandwiches, cakes, and sweet potato pies to raise
money for the cause. Additional monies came from churches, the NAACP,
UAW, SCEF, Jews, anonymous white southerners, and elementary school-
children. The donations allowed the MIA to purchase a fleet of fifteen new
station wagons to transport the boycotters. Each new car was turned over to
a different church, so collectively they were dubbed ‘rolling churches.’
Thanks to military-like discipline, the operation succeeded spectacularly and
raised black confidence. A janitor explained, ‘The world knows we are right,
and we is gonna win our cause....White folks don’t scare us no longer.’
As the bus company, downtown businessmen, and city lost $1 million,
local politicians tried to destroy the boycott. Mayor Gayle urged more whites
to ride buses to stem the financial hemorrhaging. He also asked white
Montgomerians not to chauffeur their black maids. Angry women wrote let-
ters to the paper saying that ‘If the mayor wants to do my wash and wants to
cook for me and clean up after my children let him come and do it. But as
long as he won’t do it I’m certainly not going to get rid of this wonderful
woman I’ve had for fifteen years.’ The city commissioners then tried a ruse
to end the boycott. To bypass King, they placed a newspaper advertisement
reporting that prominent black ministers had called off the boycott. Worried
MIA officials quashed the hoax before the workweek resumed. A furious
mayor cut off discussions with black leaders and announced that every city
commissioner had joined the Citizens’ Council.
White supremacists went after the boycotters themselves. Insurance
companies refused to insure the car pool, a serious problem until Lloyd’s
of London covered the black drivers. Rosa Parks was fired from her job
and left for Detroit, where her brother lived. To stop attorney Fred Gray, the
local draft board reclassified him as eligible for military service. The police
adopted a get-tough policy on drivers for the boycott, checking head-
lights and ticketing drivers for going too fast and too slow. Jo Ann Robinson
received thirty traffic citations. Young whites in speeding cars shouted
obscenities, tossed rotten eggs, and squeezed balloons filled with urine at
black pedestrians. Dynamiters blew up car pool stations, black churches, and