Exercise 4

Key Question: Were the courts a friend or a foe (or both) of the bus boycotters?

Examine the section called “We Are Having a Difficult Time Here but We Are Not Discouraged”.

Discussion Questions:

• What was the response of black Montgomerians to Rosa Parks’s arrest?
• Why was a bus boycott called for rather than leaving Parks’s case to the courts?
• How did the City of Montgomery use laws and courts to squash the boycott?
  • Were these attempts legal? Were they just?
• How did black activists respond when bus segregation was ruled un-Constitutional?

Sources

• “5000 at Meeting Outline Boycott; Bullet Clips Bus”, Montgomery Advertiser, 6 December 1955
• Negro Ministers of Montgomery and Their Congregations, “To the Montgomery Public”, statement that references previous arrests like White’s, Brook’s, Colvin’s
• “Integrated Bus Suggestions” from 19 December 1956

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