Representing the narrative arc of the popular story of the civil rights movie. We are going back to our topic of origin points, with the objective of putting those events and contacts, but also troubling the idea of them as origin points. Last week we discussed brown v. Board of education, the decision, response, the impact, and also the legacy. I want to talk more about the legacy as we go forward. We will not do that today. Spent time we talking about the emmett till case, the lynching of emmett till in august of 1955. We used a mix of secondary and primary sources to consider how ideologies of race, gender and justice impacted that case and the lived experience of the people in the case. I wanted to take a moment to pull out and say that this week, what happens this week that is of significance in relationship to the emmett till case. Anybody paying attention . Yeah . Ahead. Student [indiscernible] legislation. Prof. Greer they passed the emmett till antilynching act, it designates lynching as a hate crime under federal law. This legislation is coming 65 years after emmett tills lynching in 120 years after Congress First considered antilynching legislation. That is 120 years of congress passng to, choosing not to such legislation. , congress did see fit to apologize to the descendents of lynching victims, but it took another 15 years for the senate and the house to pass the legislation, and it will go to the white house for signing by president trump. You can imagine there are a lot of responses going onto this. The prominent one is why now . People are asking, is this commemorative . Is it a cause for celebration or a cause for concern . Is this preemptive . What is the context now making feasible within congress when it has been 120 years and that hasnt been the case . I want to take a moment to point out ida b wells. A lot of people are talking about the antilynching legislation and asking about wells. Ida b wells was an activist and journalist in the late 19th century who publicly and doggedly and consistently was condemning and publicizing lynching. Most notably through her publication, a red record. She did this at great personal cost. Her printing outfit was burned down and she was run out of town. You can see why people might say not that emmett till should not be attached, but where is the recognition of ida b wells . We will come back to wells when talking about montgomery. Coming back to origin points, i wanted to point that out. Today we focus on the montgomery bus boycott and i want to put it in the timeline i showed you last time. Have the brown v. Board of education decision in may of 1964. Then we have brown v. Board of education two the following year, and the emmett till lynching in 1955. Anil think a lot of people i dont think a lot of people realize how close the bus boycott was to emmett till lynching. That is a little bit of context for you, to put it in a visual form. Todayl use the readings to consider the bus boycott. The readings give you a lot of information about events and circumstances leading up to, but not so much information necessarily about the boycott. We will also talk about that and we can continue the conversation in our next lecture as well, and certainly if people have questions. I want to focus on montgomery because, more than any of the other origin events we have talked about, montgomery is most often cited as the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in the popular narrative. It is assigned to the popular narrative of the boycott itself, in the larger narrative, to be somewhat problematic. I want to dig into the myth, the story of the montgomery bus boycott. In doing that, i think an effective way of doing that is looking at a central figure in the myth, rosa parks. Callt to look at what i the mythic rosa parks. I want to make a real distinction between rosa parks as a person, as a woman, and rosa parks as an icon. We will be talking about both. Those are two separate things. I want to ask you if you can give me, some of you may have more information about rosa parks. Have a lot more Information Available to us now. But if you could give me a sense of the popular narrative, the enduring narrative or idea of rosa parks as you likely learned when you were in Elementary School, or typically celebrated through black history month. Anybody . Think what i learned about her in Elementary School was definitely she refused to give up her seat. She was an ordinary woman coming it was a, and manifestation of the common attitudes of the time. She was an ordinary woman and a martyr come honestly. That is how it was portrayed. Prof. Greer she became a martyr in that sense. Anyone else . Student i guess the way i learned about it is that she was the catalyst for this movement, as if she was the only woman or person who had been arrested for not giving up their seat. As if it was a single incident that happened, and it was her. Prof. Greer yeah. As much as the montgomery bus boycott is seen as the beginning of the civil rights woman, she is seen as the beginning of the bus boycott. Thats where the title mother of the Civil Rights Movement comes from. On our best day, how many of us could hope for such a title. But going off of those points, she was typically described as an elderly woman. She was 42. I need that not to be elderly. She was not elderly. She was described as an elderly seamstress, many accounts did not give her a name. An elderly seamstress with tired feet who spontaneously took a stand by sitting down and singlehandedly sparked the modern black freedom movement. Any of want to deny her her importance. Parks that,rosa with the best of intentions, my mother introduced me to when i was young. I held onto that picture all the way through college, well into graduate studies. It was only when i started doing my own research as a masters student that that image started to crumble. Not just crumble, but become really frustrating to me. Ideal of parksis frustrates or negates her actual history, particularly her activist history. In the recent years, we have had historians who are really working or have really worked the breakdown of the idea to give us a more complicated picture. I want to point to these two books in particular. Have anyone read any of them . At the dark end of the street, and the rebellious life of mrs. Rosa parks. That already tells you it will be a corrective narrative. You have a desire to know more about rosa parks as a woman and activist, these are great sources. I am drawing on them some to do that with you today. Want to use these books or use the information i have from books in my own research to deconstruct that myth. If youing to ask you know more about rosa parks, or if what you are holding onto you can just raise your hand, you dont have to answer if you are holding onto this typical, iconic idea. That gets celebrated in black history month. For how many of you is that the image you are most familiar with . Wow, ok. Surprising,ly not because i think that image andulates in newspapers Childrens Books, so as not surprising but it is troubling to me. How i want to point out is simple and inaccurate that representation is. I will start at the beginning. Beginning in the 1930s, rosa parks was campaigning on behalf of the scottsboro boys with her husband. Melanie brought up the scottsboro boys in our last class in terms of these nine africanamerican men accused of raping two white women on a train. It was a long, drawnout case in which many of them spent years and years in prison. Rosa parks was actively campaigning on their behalf. Which is notable, because these were africanamericans defended the communist party. Right there, that is some verses subversive activity. Dont worry about writing this down, i will send it to you immediately after. Just listen to the story. Particular if this is the first time you have had any encounter with this woman. I promise you. As a lookout on the steps of her own home while they were naacp meetings held in her house, where she discusses she had never seen so many guns come on her kitchen table. She never seen so many guns until the meetings were in her house. 1943,ined the naacp in either the second or third woman in montgomery to do that. A mustame the secretary immediately because nobody else wanted to do it. That in and of itself is a woman as a woman was unusual and montgomery at the time. The otheral, one of women was you can see some modeling going on there. This is key. In her role as a secretary of the naacp in the 1940s and montgomery, alabama or alabama, she traveled around the state by herself to gather evidence or proof or testimony from blacks who had witnessed or experienced white on black violence. Think about that. How many of you have seen a picture of rosa parks . She is not a formidable woman. She is a black woman traveling by herself through the jim crow that manyet material whites or Authority Figures would have been upset about. This is a dangerous thing she is doing. Quite in contrast to the image we have of her. The 1940s onin behalf of sexually abused black women. Very openly. Bookiswhat is about. Harris really traces that role of parks on behalf of sexually abused lack women, largely by white men. She made repeated attempts to register to vote in the 1940s. Repeated attempts. As we will talk about and as im sure you know to some extent, this could be a dangerous act at this point in time. She protested segregation on the buses before 1945. She was kicked off a bus by the same bus driver almost a decade theier for resisting instructions of that bus driver. Was a featurede speaker at the naacp state convention in 1948. I dont think that is an image we have of rosa parks. When i was doing my research, i found an audio clip of her on a new york radio interview and i remember hearing her voice for the first time and being like, of course, she is southern. It just surprised me. I had never heard her. Speaking before a convention crowd in 1948. Very public. She trained at the Highlander Folk School in tennessee. This was before her arrest. She did a two week training in desegregation at the Highlander Folk School, which was pegged as communist but it was not a communist school. It was a leadership training institution. Precisely because of brown v. Board of education that workshops were being held. It was to help learn how to facilitate that process. Hopefully peacefully. She never fully embraced nonviolence, and she is on the record about that. She is on the record about not knowing if threatening with violence or messed with in a particular way, that she could turn the other cheek. She supported some of the nonviolent activities of the Civil Rights Movement but never fully supported nonviolence. For how many of you is that surprising . Right . That is, again, troubling to me. But not at all surprising. My question, and i will allow for a couple of answers, why do you think there is no right answer because you are the ones who know why do you think there is such an investment, or call her, parks as i has survived so long, well after her death . She died in 2005. Why does that have such currency, that idea . Student i think when i learned about this, i think i was in Elementary School, so 8, 9, 10 years old. I think it is easier for her to be a onedimensional character in the story we tell children when we are first learning about this history, than it is for her to be a complex human being that has more to offer the story than just sitting on a bus. Also thinking is about how a lot of us learned about this in Elementary School, very strategic on public education, to tell children and push this narrative that black people get what they want if they are nonviolent and pacified. There are so many Historic Events we learn about that are achieved through violent means in European Countries and by white people generally did generally. Is a member dead as catalyst for a Larger Movement and we are told this person was nonviolent, peaceful, old, tired woman, when that was not the case. Maybe that is strategic. Prof. Greer at least politically significant if not intended. Anyone else want to speak to that . Look at you. [laughter] student i also think this narrative presents her as a political agent, which even broader for women of all races, that is something that is not mentioned, that she is someone who was very strategic and what she did. Even in terms of what organizations she associated with. It shows her agency in a way that we are reluctant to talk about regarding women. Prof. Greer yeah. Remember i told you to draw name mie tilladford ma bradford forward. We have to think about how parks presented herself. We will talk more about that later in time. I agree with all of you to an extent. The montgomery bus boycott i think is one of our greatest national fabrications. Its a nice story of good versus and, david and goliath, good americans bear out. Those aberrant, racist southerners, but good americans bear out. When you have a fairytale, you have simple good versus bad, and rosa parks is the hero along with Martin Luther king. They are the hero of this fairytale. Aboutny of you learned rosa parks for the first time in Elementary School . Ok. How many of you learned anything else about her after . Ok. Its always interesting to me, because i think you are right in the sense that people think that children need simple characters. To me, the sad thing is that is when, i think, minds, attitudes are very flexible and can take in complex information. I often use the example of when i was in badge school, a Childrens Book amount about Martin Luther king and my professor brought it in and read it to us. On april 4, 1968, Martin Luther king died. Which is not an accurate, right in accurate, right . He was assassinated. It showed a hesitancy to deal in that material. Point people to grimms fairy tales, which are horrifying and scary. But theres the idea that we need the sanitized stories for children, and i think that would be fine, but it would be ok if there was at any other point where you were learning, building on that story. My experiences and im sure it is different in different regions and different schools, but my experience is that most people dont then have more education on the Civil Rights Movement and rosa parks. I learned about rosa parks when i was young, preschool probably, and in Elementary School. Later i think in middle school or high school, i learned how she was not the first person to give up her seat. I think that is really interesting. In one of the articles about the montgomery bus boycott, they said that rosa parks had the caliber of count of character to get the city to rally around them. I was always curious about why rosa parks. Interesting was that we focus specifically on her we dont talk about the back story when we are learning about her. Prof. Greer and let me speak to that, lets go through that. One of the reasons i focus on ,he symbolic, mythic rosa parks or start they are, is because i think she is propping up a bigger myth of the montgomery myth, and i would argue that is ring of securing obscu information about the bus boycott that would be helpful to us now. Information about organizing, how funded things, what formed their theories or strategies. I want to speak to that because that is a huge question why . Why do we not have that information . The montgomery mets, here are some aspects. Montgomery myths, here are some aspects. Enough. Ed has had tot she was the first one take the stand and the boycott was unprecedented and spontaneous. That is part of what allows it to have the container idea of the Civil Rights Movement. Like suddenly there was organizing. Martin luther king jr. Organized the boycott, the masses followed king, the masses walked, the boycott ended segregated buses and the boycott was short. I wanted to tick through those and speak to those. The first one being the idea that parks was the first. That she was the first woman, black woman to resist segregated public transportation. Thereot even true are examples from the previous century, one of them being ida b wells, who protested on a railroad. She sued and won. Sojourner truth protested on d. C. Streetcars be it and homer where plessy versus ferguson comes from. We have examples of African Americans boycotting segregated transportation before. In birmingham, alabama, we have two examples. I only wrote one down. Kart in 1943. She was a teenager and a bus driver treated her poorly, she spit on him and cursed him, and she spent 30 days in jail. There was another woman who got a shoving match with a white man on the bus. She cursed him while she was riding the bus and when she got off the bus, she was arrested and sentenced to spend time in jail. To pointstgomery, several of you have made, there incidentsl documented of women doing exactly what parks did. Some of them did more than once. Epsierst one being worthy. Whoargued with the driver, followed her, spit on her, beat her, and according to eyewitness testimony, she gave as good as she got. I dont know what happened to her but i am guessing she spent time in jail. Sat inta brinson front of a white couple on a bus and was targeted by the bus driver, but she avoided jail because the white couple agreed to move. What you have to understand about segregated buses, generally speaking, there are 10 seats in the front and 10 in the back. E me, there was a no mans land in the middle. The white people sat in the front. What is important is that bus drivers had police powers. That makes resisting doubly risky. They could do what a Police Officer could do in those circumstances, including violence. Parksher examples, rosa resisted, a decade before. One of the worst cases is viola white who in 1943 of you to give up her seat, the driver try to remove her, she resisted, she was beaten, arrested, jailed, found guilty, she appealed the case, and as reprisal, white kid white Police Officers kidnapped her 16yearold daughter and raped her in a cemetery. That was for her resisting. It tells you the significance of crossing that line. , as the article pointed out, in the same year, in 1965, you have claudette a 15yearold teenager who refuses to give up her seat. The naacp and everyone rallies around her in march of 1955, until she winds up pregnant and they back off. In april of that year, a month ariella browder has an incident on a bus where she is arrested for resisting giving up her seat. In october, mary louise smith, an 18yearold africanamerican girl who refuses to give up her seat, also before rosa parks. We know about her because her father came down and paid her financially was out before the naacp knew about it. But these women have given statements to the effect that they were not in the inner circle. They were too dark and too poor, the smith family was catholic. We have at least three women who have done the same thing in the same year as rosa parks. We need to think about, we need to scratch off that rosa parks was the first. Just take that off. Yes . Areent when you say they too dark, too poor, are you saying they could not be the figure behind the boycott . Prof. Greer right. Thats what coleman and louise smith believed and there is evident that supported them in that. You had parks and edie nixon both saying we cant use her, the media will terrace up, particular with coleman. Up, particular with coleman. Student [indiscernible] not seeing rosa parks as a threat. I think if she was wearing a black panther uniform, it would be a different story. Complexion i think has something to do with it. Dont think she was seen as much of a threat in that case prof. Greer in that case. Prof. Greer yeah, and there is evidence. Parks says this herself. When she is arrested, edie nixon is like hallelujah. She is the one. House togather at her convince her, but her husband is against it because hes not an idiot and he knows how dangerous it is viewed student [indiscernible] kind of forge the narrative to make her a figure of the Civil Rights Movement propagated since then . Prof. Greer i think robinson and nixon did viewed i think nixon did. I think robinson was really angry when they backed off of colvin. They had a relationship, so when they backed off of colvin, she was really upset. As the article tells you, they are waiting. Robinson has been fighting the fight for a decade. When the decision, the brown decision comes out, and she writes, four days later rights remindingor, just you, africanamericans make up 75 of the rioters, and if we were to actually boycott, that would be really bad for the bus company. That is a threat, right . We can peg that on robinson so much, but i think we can peg it on gender politics of the time and certainly also the politics of color. It is not incidental that she is a lightskinned woman. All of these things allow for the idea of middle class respectability. They allow for the idea of middleclass respectability despite the fact that rosa parks is absolutely of the working class and arguably of the working poor. She doesnt have that veneer. She does not have a demeanor that is radical. She has a radical activist past but not a demeanor that is radical. There is definitely image politics going on here, and we can decide whether or not we fault them for that or if they are looking at the reality of their situation. We have talked in here about the the imagetting into politics game. One of the things we could consider, what are the effects of rosa parks having been the symbol . I think it goes back to Morgans Point of who is worthy of justice . We talked about that with mamie till bradley as well. I want you to keep in mind, the question often comes up, why was it primarily women . And it was primarily women doing this. All you need to know is in and tell. Emmett till. You see these women get beaten, but to do the same type of resistance as an africanamerican man would have been even riskier. Also, africanamerican men were riding the buses as much. It was women on the bus primarily. Also because they were domestics. They were on the bus in a greater capacity, and often with white people. The lines were blurred because they might do the Grocery Shopping with the children of their white employer. In that capacity, they set up front, because the white baby was not going in the back. There is a little more blurring of the line. There are stories of africanamerican men, if there was a scuffle with an africanamerican woman, they would just go out the back door. They suffered psychically for that and criticize for that. They understood how loaded that situation was. I want to go to the next idea of this movement being unprecedented and spontaneous. I want to try and trouble that. There are examples within alabama that refute that idea. In 1900 ofboycott aboutolleys that lasts two years. Is not as total as the montgomery bus boycott. Is montgomery bus boycott 95 successful among africanamericans. 75 ofn is right, if your clientele is africanamerican and 95 of them stay off of the buses, i mean this crippled the bus company. They had to keep raising fares. They were on the brink of financial ruin, and yet time after time they refused to segregate the buses. That is important to understand. Lacks had a boycott of the buses around the easter holiday, and they said they were often bust out and dropped far away and had to walk in the rain. They boycotted the buses. That was a short event. In baton rouge in 1953, there was a bus boycott the people in montgomery very much took information from. Thats what i say, if you have a bus boycott narrative as simple as the one we have, you cant do what people in montgomery did in terms of the baton rouge boycott, where they took information and learn from that to organize their own boycott. And then the idea of it being spontaneous. Garrow successfully deconstructs that idea. When you look at when that article was written, in 1985. When i ask how many of you have a more complex idea about rosa parks or the bus boycott and you are telling me in the year 2020 it is still coming down this way, that is troubling. Because weve had this information for a long time now. People, educators, we had this information along time. The womens political counsel blows that out of the water, the idea it was spontaneous, that they decided at the last moment. Ow there was aarr loose plan in place and robinson was just waiting and there had been many meetings between the wpc and City Authority to address the segregated seating. With all of these half measures like let us come in the front door at least. Have more black bus drivers. It doesnt even necessarily have to be that it is an integrated bus. But it was no to all of those things. Why didnt weave, know anything about the womens 1985 . Cal consul until when we know why didnt we know anything about the womens political counsel . 35 years later. What do you think accounts for that . I think part of it is the image of Martin Luther king jr. As the leader and the figurehead in all of this. In essence, the montgomery bus boycott, the origin went for him. The story is not that he was the one leading this, pushing this forward, and that makes things difficult for his narrative. Prof. Greer very much. That is in keeping with what was said before about rosa parks and that simple idea. Absolutely pure the other thing we have to understand absolutely. The other thing we have to understand is African Americans on the ground are forging these ideas because it is politically expedient and safer to do so. That is important to consider when youre thinking about a marginalized group or oppressed group trying to advance their politics. Anyparticular particular historical moment. The women we are talking about, Joanne Robinson is an activist but still a middleclass woman in the south. Limited saying she was but she had gender ideologies of how she should behave as a middleclass woman in the south. A lot of africanamerican women were putting the black men in front. But there are other practical reasons for why they would do that. One, they think that is the image that should be out there, it makes africanamerican men look stronger. It doesnt emasculate them. And robinson has a job at a university. We learned i love this. I remember learning about robinson and her distributing this leaflet in the middle of the night, getting her students to go to her university and once graphing this leaflet rosa parks was arrested, saying this happened to another person, we cant let this happen anymore, what caught the buses on monday. She blankets the black sections of town with this to the point that black ministers and church on sunday are saying what is happening . Where is this coming from . Thatews reports on sunday afternoon saying what is this come from . Because she does it in the middle of the night. And she gets in trouble for it because she has used University Property to do it. Doityourself kind of nature of this, the hasty nature, she said she already had it written to a large degree and was just waiting. But theres a reason she did it behind the scenes. Advertiserntgomery was like, who is responsible for this . The wpc was not like, it is us. That friday theres night they distribute the leaflets and that friday the African American male ministers and black leaders get together to talk about what to do. Organizings more the or thrust behind that. Idea connected of Martin Luther king organizing the boycott and that everybody was following his order. That is partially because he was among that group of black male leaders. Its also because he was elected the president. On monday afternoon, the day the boycott starts, he was elected the president of the montgomery improvement association, which was the official representative of the boycott. Why do you think he is elected . Aboutnybody know anything king at this point in time . He is 26yearold and has just moved to montgomery. Student as a minister, he kind of provides a level of respectability to the movement. Prof. Greer definitely. Everybody agrees, he has a phd in theology, he is articulate which, that is a coded word. He presents well. Definitely. But he is also new. He kind of gets pushed out front because he doesnt have any of the relationships, patronage relationships some of the other black male leaders do. Anyone yet,yal to and if he messes up, they dont lose something. Im not saying he was not willing to do this, or volunteered, but think about it, this is the origin point for Martin Luther king. 26 years old. No way did he know what this would mean for him, how he would be launched onto the national stage. Partly because nobody thought this boycott was going to last more than one day. The reason it was that monday is because that was when rosa parks was going to her trial. Nobody thought the boycott would last more than one day. The other reason people think king was the leader is because at the mass meetings like the one described in the reading, he is upfront. His audience is the masses. Media,asy for outside which did come and film this, report on it, to see him as a leader. At this first mass meeting, that is what this picture is, rosa parks, the presenter, and Martin Luther king said, this person, we are lucky she is the face of our movement, she is not a disturbing factor in the community. She was a disturbing factor in the community. And shetanding there says, can i Say Something . And the ministers say you have done enough. I always find that interesting. She sits down. I wonder what the dynamics were. She sits down because she takes her gift of you have done enough, lets recognize you, or if it is we got this. But she sits down. It is very easy, you see the mantle shift from parks to king that night. Its the official debut of the parks we know. This nondisturbing, middleclass, respectable woman. From that point forward, the Media Campaign begins. Till child was one of the first media events of the Civil Rights Movement. This was a media event, it was a staged drama. Art of the reason people see him as a leader is because he is out front all the time. But through the boycott, jicama and the women who have been arrested before the boycott, he and the women who have been arrested before, he is saying i am not the leader. I am the spokesperson, but the masses are leading this movement. Says the colvin leaders are we ourselves when asked about king. She is still a teenager at this point. King is not refuting that. He considers himself lucky to be representing them, but because of the gender politics and the media image and how it is being positioned, there is this idea that he is the leader. It is interesting to know that on monday, that monday, december fifth, everybody gathers at this mass meeting to assess how it has gone. Improvementry association was informed that afternoon. The idea is it is a boycott, very successful, they show their strength, and all of the people in the audience are like, we are not going back on those buses. Especially the maids and cooks. We are not going back on the buses, we are not suffering that humiliation anymore. This is no longer like this is a show of force. The masses decide that night, we will continue this. Then it becomes a matter of how to run a bus boycott. Says here masses walked. I put that as an aspect of the absolutelymyth, African Americans were walking in all sorts of weather for miles and miles. Theres testimony about people about how they walked miles into work and out of work and that sense. There is this really iconic photograph of one white lady and the buses otherwise empty. Of africanre reports americans threatening other africanamericans if they get on the bus. So they are absolutely walking, but its not reasonable to think that if they had to walk everywhere, to their jobs and everywhere they wanted to go, that this would have been successful as they wanted it to be. It wouldve been a burden that was really difficult. Looking to the baton rouge example, they form a carpool. A very intricate carpool that is organized and run by the montgomery Improvement Organization association. Many of the drivers are middleclass black women who are either housewives of elite black men or teachers at the university. They are driving people around. They also have all of the black taxis doing free or reduced fare rides until the city makes that an illegal activity. There is this really organized carpool that is happening. At the center of it they need funding, they need to put gas in these cars. Woman named Georgia Gilmore has been recognized. She was a cook, an activist in montgomery, and she formed the nowhere club. The name was a joke so that when people would say where . She got these women together to to pay for the fuel. Where did you get these sandwiches . Nowhere. She is getting credit for that. But they had all of this infrastructure behind the boycott, most of which is manned by women, including rosa parks, who was fired immediately after she takes her stand on the bus. She is fired, and her husbands fires. She became one of the people organizing the boycott throughout the spring of 1956. It is primarily women who are running these activities. If you this is visible just have the saintly rosa parks and suddenly the powers that be realize this is really wrong and desegregate the buses. There is a lot of work that went into it. ,here is a book by stuart burns and there is no narrative, he just compiles all of the documents going on during the boycott, and you see the interoffice memos about events planned, things they need, how they will fund king going different places to talk and things. There is a big machine behind the boycott. Ideais a huge one, the that the boycott, the montgomery bus boycott desegregated the buses. How many of you think this is true or have thought that was true . I wont say it is not true. This is a debatable question. But it did not officially end segregation on public transportation. Any guesses as to what would . Or did . Melody . Like 382 dayssted , so if you look at it as a monetary perspective, how much money they were losing, and if they could sustain that, i think it was more a monetary decision. Prof. Greer i think that is a very logical and reasonable yes. It should be. Of course, they are crippling the bus company and making it very difficult. They have to keep reducing bus routes and the fact that that is not the answer tells you how entrenched the city officials were. Student wasnt like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . Prof. Greer no. But it was legislation. L. Owder versus gai court case. I think this is a huge injustice. You have fine plaintiffs, eventually reese drops out from harassment. You have five plaintiffs who bring this court case against the mayor of montgomery and the bus company. Looking at the list of absences . , notice any who is not there . Rosa parks is not anywhere there. She cannot be viewed she can no longer she cannot be. She cannot be a test case because she was charged with violating the City Ordinance and not giving up her seat. If City Ordinance says that there were seats available, africanamericans could sit on them. The state ordinance said africanamericans had to obey whatever the bus said. In the middle of the trial and her lawyer went to appeal it. Because it was under appeal, she could not be the test case. She is not involved in this case. Any other absences you might notice . There are no men. And there is an appeal from an for men. And they say at a meeting, seriously guys, you have been riding the apron strings. Its interesting because the black male ministers were less vulnerable because their patronage were black people. They did not have a business, they were not working at a university funded by white people. It is all women, all women who have experienced arrest or harassment on the buses, smith, theseeman, people considered not eligible, not the right fit for being the face of the movement. And they werent, because none of you knew about them. You dont even know about this case. They were not the face of it. Forward, and starts february 1, 1956. It goes forward. This is where you get all of the testimony about women these Court Documents are so useful because you have testimony from all of these women about what happened to them. It brings in all of these other records about their arrest. You have them sing in a public court against the mayor and city of montgomery, this happened to me, that is why i am here, and this is where colvin says the leaders are we ourselves, because they keep trying to find out about king. The leaders are we ourselves. It starts in february. In june, 19 56, the lower court ruled toone in favor of the plaintiffs on the ground of the 14th amendment. City officials appeal, they are not giving up. City officials appeal. Courter 13, the supreme upholds the Lower Court Ruling and city officials appeal. This accounts for the fact of the 381 days. Africanamericans are like, we are not going back on the segregated buses. ,ecember 20, the Supreme Court they did not hear the case again, they said we wont consider the appeal, we have decided this. Citysfectively ends the attempts to stave off the segregation of city buses. The decree of that ruling reaches montgomery on december 20, 1956. Africanamericans meet in their final mass meeting of the boycott and agree ok, we got what we wanted, we will go on the buses tomorrow, december 21, 1956. That morning, cameras come from all over the country, they go to Martin Luther kings house and abernathy and ralph and other prominent ministers walk to the bus station at 5 00 in the morning, get on the bus, and they take these iconic photographs. At some point in the morning, someone says what about that parks woman . Maybe we should get a photograph of her. They do go and find her, but she is an afterthought. Become theshe has face of the movement, nothing leader of the movement, she was the one that was relatively taken care of. This is because during the entire year, every time she appears in a public setting in relationship to the boycott, she is with men. Very much the same way mamie ti ll bradley was. She is surrounded i men in suits and ties. She does speak after certain events, but she is right next to these authoritative looking africanamerican men throughout the entire thing. They do become seemingly the strength of that movement. Anhink it is really injustice that no one knows about these women. Had six children, she was a seamstress, she was a wife and mother, and midwife. She went back to get her bachelors degree in her 30s and got her masters degree. She was an activist. They did not pick her first time because they did not think she could withstand crossexamination. I dont know why. Thats why they did not use her as a test case. Then she becomes the lead of this case, and nobody knows about it. What melody brought up, the idea that the boycott was short. Just out of curiosity, because most of you have admitted, i had a skewed idea of this how long do you think most people if not yourself thought the boycott was . Think . W long do you just yell out a number. A few weeks. Prof. Greer thats what i grew up thinking. Yeah. I think what allows for that is kind of the fairytale idea. Again, some things are wrong would not take that long. , my browder versus gail question to you is, did the boycott desegregate the buses . You dont have enough information to make a this is where i am planting my flag. But without the boycott, what do you think . Nailer versus gail put the in the coffin of plessy versus ferguson, that was when separate but equal went by the wayside. This was a huge ruling. Arguably more important or as , as brown v. Brown board of education. A huge ruling. Do you think the boycott was necessary to that ruling . Student i think it was, because i think the boycott, while it was not an illegal action or might not have produced, might it have taken it down, changed peoples perceptions of what was happening with separate versus equal. And Media Campaign, it reverberated throughout the country. I think you change peoples hearts, you change peoples minds. Maybe that is playing into the think it grew, especially in the north. Student to that extent, you talked about how there were previously court. With the buses and desegregating them, i think the boycott was to finalize, like you said, nail in the coffin. Prof. Greer ok. Anyone else . Yeah. Very strongs a argument. The Supreme Court, officials are not operating in a vacuum. And so to understand that public innion may be moving another direction, and theres also legal grounds, but to understand Public Opinion may be moving in another direction, demonstrated by a northern response. Because this is when the Movement Goes national, right . This is when the Movement Goes national. People are sending in money from all over the world. The Movement Goes international, actually. There are political cartoons you can find in french newspapers talking about the boycott. The Movement Goes national and international. That inu think, and put a cold war context, too, thats people are reason interested. And it inspires a similar boycott in south africa. So people are paying attention to this, in a way that had not gotten that attention before. Why do you think this one got so much attention . Hadntt that that happened in montgomery before. Why did this result in a National Media event . The answer is implied in the question. [laughter] student because they had media available . [laughter] prof. Greer to some degree. You cant take out the fact, we have this idea of a movement in the postwar moment, without considering the circumstances. The cold war, something to consider. We had new technology, and this is the first example of a movement that is considered nonviolent direct action. Not the first time that strategy was used, but this is one that becomes publicized. The leaders, Martin Luther king, are talking about nonviolent direct action. And were owing to talk about nonviolence in terms of a strategy, in relationship to other strategies that come later. But i need to be careful when i say this, because i do not want to dismiss the idea that these people participating in the boycott were dedicated to a doctrine of nonviolence for moral, civil, principled reasons. But its also pageantry, right . It is also pageantry. And when you have media cameras, have people coming down, and you rowthese crowds, row after of welldressed africanamericans stoically, peacefully walking through the city, walking to the court buildings, thats an image of blackness that hasnt been mainstreamed before that point in time, right . And subsequent activists take note. Were going to talk about that, when we talk about little rock and birmingham. So this nonviolent direct action, certainly this is a strategy used in other moments, other movements, becomes something people understand as defining the movement. That comes out of montgomery, in that sense. So it has this National Presence that also, to your earlier point, is scary to the virulent segregationists. But theres no angry black people, theres no weapons, right . Nobody is demanding. Nobody is demanding. Theyre just peacefully refusing, peacefully refusing. And they are litigated against many times during that, for doing that. The bipod is considered illegal boycott is considered illegal. They take king, and charge him on conspiracy grounds, and bring people,e other including robinson and parks. How many of you have seen the picture of parks, the mug shot of rosa parks . That is not when she was arrested. Thats from when she had to participate in this conspiracy trial, and everyone in the trial is saying, she is not leading this boycott. You have all these africanamerican people in montgomery show up to the courthouse. They find that king has been arrested, and they say, where is my warrant . This has never happened before, where africanamerican people arent afraid to go to the jail. They get in their best clothes. They drive to the jail. People lined the courthouse steps, to make sure they go in and out. They turn themselves in. That is a shift in the relationship of africanamericans toward law enforcement. You dont take yourself to jail in africanamerican jim crow south. But they show up, and it takes away the leverage the city authorities have in that sense. So someone bombs kings house. They put in an injunction against the free taxis, and they do all these things trying to cut the legs out from underneath the boycotters, but unsuccessfully. I think all that pageantry is what allows for the idea that we have of the montgomery bus boycott as being short and being an action of martyrs and saints. Martin luther king marching the masses to freedom and the wall comes tumbling down and that, right . So you can see why i find that problematic, because that isnt a useful history, at least in my mind. It is inspiring, and many people find it compelling and inspiring, and that is important. You dont want to rip down an origin story, a myth, without putting some thing else there. And i think if you have an idea of how they are organizing, how they were successful. This was one of the more successful social movements in history, right . At least in u. S. History in the 20 century. They were successful. But if you dont know anything about it, and king and parks appear to be these figures . Who on their best day can be as saintly, or courageous as king and parks, as these things make them appear . And they certainly were courageous, right . But they were people, with thesex things, and put in situations for a myriad of reasons. Then, you start to think, oh, that is possible. Lets look at what they did. Of course, you cant take their strategies and map them to the 21st century, but you can take their strategies and adjust for historical circumstances. Thats useful history. This is not a useful history, as far as im concerned. So i give you these facts, this ameline, i want you to have sense of the timeline. I will send it to you. Dont worry about it right now. Going backwards. I also want to point out parks role. Bus,e she ever got on the before she ever made her stand. This is important, because people always say she was either a plant or she didnt mean to, but was inspired. She doesnt have to be an naacp plant. She was entirely inclined to do what she did on the bus that day. It didnt have to be preplanned. She was entirely inclined to do that. Then you have the Supreme Court ruling that ends the bus boycott. Alli want to point out these other women, just make sure. Ill end here. Parks,bolic myth of rosa parks,g up this montgomery propping up this montgomery myth. And the other thing we will , if they do speak about it in its truest form, it might almost ignite the feeling in these young children. That is the case. Dont have time to talk about the brown case. We talked about the decision. We dont know about the nine children involved in the brown case. You dont know anything about them. That is not sexy. The decision was sexy, the boycott was sexy, in that case. Part of why you should question whether or not there is a movement now, because we are not seeing sexy, not seeing pageantry stuff lately. That doesnt mean there is not organizing going on. The article, part of why i gave you that, he said men led, but women organized. You may have to consider your ideas of what leadership is and what organizing is, right . The wtc kind of crumbles his thesis there, at least for me, but only if you allow yourself to consider, what did they mean by leadership, what did they mean by organizing . The and reading about emmettl, the bus an ill, the bus movement, and dont think they get enough credit as leaders in the movement as they should, and they relate to amy bradley, and in this situation the women were the one who built the whole infrastructure that allowed them to do some thing like that. I was really thinking about those mothers. Prof. Greer and we will talk more about this. The need for people on the ground in the mid 20th century to keep their activity secret, and the consequences of that, as i told you earlier about this book all black lives matter by barbara ramsey. That gets into the details. It really tells you whats going on right now, or in the last couple years, and it is the first time reading something i had some optimism. Becauseseeing it, people have adopted different ideas about how to approach this, im not seeing it as publicly or in the media to such a degree. It doesnt mean its not happening, doesnt mean it is not actually resulting in some victories, right . [laughter] see you guys next time. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] this is American History tv on cspan3, where each weekend we feature 48 hours of programming exploring our nations past. You are watching American History tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan three. To join the conversation, like us on facebook at cspan history. May 9, fromrday, 8 00 to 9 00 a. M. Eastern we will host a live study session for the advanced placement u. S. History exam. Jason stacy and Matthew Elling ham, coauthors of fabric of a nation will explain how this years exam will be structured differently, provide strategies for the full response answers, and demonstrate how to analyze historical documents. They will also take student questions by phone call and social media. Join us on cspans washington journal and on American History tv on cspan 3. Next on the civil war, scott mingus, coauthor of targeted tracks, talks about the importance of the Cumberland Valley railroad during the civil war, a one track Railroad Running from hagerstown maryland to harrisburg, pennsylvania, used to send union troops ammunition and supplies and was often under attack by confederate forces. The Gettysburg Heritage Center in pennsylvania hosted this talk. A little bit about our speaker. We have with us today scott mingus. I have known scott for a number of years but i really didnt know scott until i reviewed his bio that he sent to me. Surprisingly, he is a scientist and a consultant in the global pulp and paper industry. And he holds patents in selfadhesive postage stamps and barcode labels. I never knew that