The Montgomery Bus Boycott: Civil Rights Activist

The march on Washington was one of the first major speeches John Lewis gave. On August 28, 1963, Lewis spoke in front of hundreds outside the Lincoln Memorial. He said, “We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have nothing to be proud of,for hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here, for they are receiving starvation wages, or no wages at all. While we stand here, there are sharecroppers in the fields working for less than three dollars a day. While we stand here, there are students in jail on trumped-up charges.

The 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott was a success in bringing equality among the racial segregation within buses and bus stations. One day in 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for not moving when she was told to, which led to the call of boycotting against buses. Afterwards, African Americans gathered together and made a stance in refusing to ride buses as a protest against the unfair treatments they have endured on the buses (Document 2). Despite breaking black discriminating laws, they followed a nonviolent approach during their protest, which developed a progress toward equality. In addition, many blacks decided to avoid buses overall by finding different methods of transportation after the police started harassing the black taxi drivers.

At that moment in the book, Lewis and the other protesters review their policies of non-violence. When so many other people, the white people, were so hateful and so cruel to the people of color, Lewis and the protesters vowed to stay non-violent when they easily could have fought back or retaliated, but they did not. That takes some of the strongest people with the most courage and strongest of wills to not return the hate and violence but to take the abuse the white people gave to them. That was the purpose of the March:

The graphic memoir, March, is a biography about Congressman John Lewis’ young life in rural Alabama which provides a great insight into lives of black families in 1940s and 50s under Jim Crow and segregation laws. March opens with a violent march at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which the gruesome acts later became known as “Bloody Sunday,” during this march, 600 peaceful civil rights protestors were attacked by the Alabama state troopers for not listening to their commands. The story then goes back and forth depicts Lewis growing up in rural Alabama and President Obama’s inauguration in 2009. This story of a civil rights pioneer, John Lewis, portrays a strong influence between geography, community, and politics. The correlation between these pillars of March is that they have to coexist with other in order for John Lewis to exist that the world knows today.

A sea of blue officer’s uniforms create a wall. Smoke grenades clink on the pavement. The sea of blue floods the street. Screaming and yelling fill the air as well as a thick gas(Lewis+Aydin+Powel 5-9). Bloody Sunday was a shock to people throughout the U.S. and will go down history as progress for the Civil Rights Movement, and the efforts of John Lewis on equality for black people will be remembered.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a successful movement in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. The protest was huge protest movement against racial segregation on the public transportation system in Montgomery, Alabama. Throughout the Civil Rights Movement African Americans fought to put an end to segregation and discrimination. They conducted peaceful, non-violent protests in attempt to reach their goal of ending segregation and discrimination. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was one of the most effective peaceful protests during the Civil Rights Movement.

March is a book by John Lewis about the Civil Rights Movement and all the events that happened during it. The book talks about the harsh treatment of African-Americans at the time and all the hardships they faced back then. John Lewis showed his perseverance through his speech, action, and thoughts. In the beginning of the book, John Lewis stands with other civil rights activists during the Selma to Montgomery Marches.

It was the 1959-1960 school year in Nashville, Tennessee. I large spring of hope began to bubble up from the earth. It’s beginning came from American Baptist College. A major proponent for this geyser was John Lewis. John Lewis was a student activist that led sit-ins and non-violent movements.

Among all the civil right leaders on the March on Washington D.C only one is a living today still fighting for equality. John Lewis was an iconic civil rights leader during 1960’s in the fight for civil rights for black people and desegregation of the south. Lewis started on a small farm in 1940’s where he tended the chickens as a young boy. As Lewis grow up he had to go through life changing that open his eyes to the injustice around him, without this moments he would not have become the great civil right leader he is today. Some of those memorable pivotal turning Lewis had to go though were the journey to Buffalo he took with his uncle Otis, listening and engaging with Mather Luther King, the pressure of stacking up to civil right speaker

John Lewis spoke 6th that day. As seen in figure one. His speech was very powerful. His focus was mostly on all the injustice the people of color face. Lewis argues that “….

This event gained lots of press coverage and incited protests from people all over the country who sympathized with the protesters in Alabama. President Lyndon B. Johnson also spoke out against police brutality and announced his intent to pass a voting rights bill because of the events that Sunday. Another protest formed as Dr. King invited people from all over the country to join in on a march to Montgomery two days later on March 9th. It was essential that Dr. King organized the next protest so soon after the events of Bloody Sunday so as to keep the press coverage on the issues in Alabama. The second march proceeded with around 2,000 people, but was also halted at Edmund Pettus Bridge by the Alabama government, although this time there were no casualties or violence during the

John Lewis, who is now known as a “Big Six” civil rights leader, joined The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Freedom Rides in 1961. The Freedom Rides’ purpose was to challenge the poorly enforced decision of the Supreme Court, which ruled segregated buses unconstitutional (Arsenault 4). The start of John Lewis’s career in the African American civil rights movement was as a very young activist. He led sit-ins and adored Martin Luther King. Lewis referred to him as “the person who, more than any other, continued to influence my life, who made me who I was” (Lewis 412).

When Rosa Park decided to not let her seat to a white in a public bus, she started what was later known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama, during the boycott Afro-American deiced to walk instead of using the public transportation. Almost 60% of the money earned by the bus company came from Afro-Americans, Park stated that she was “tired of giving in” and later became known as an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. The Greensboro sit-ins was an even more remarkable event when four student decided to sit on a ‘whites only’ counter at the local Woolworth drug store, they remained there, without service, until the store closed, for the following six day more student followed them in this non-violent strategy in different business stores until Woolworth closed its door, later on the students founded the SNCC. In May 1961, “Freedom writer” with the racially integrated Congress of Racial Equality boarded buses and braved attacks by southern white mobs for daring to desegregate interstate transportation, many white people helped in the proses, there were cases in which white stand and received the attacks of the mobs so the blacks could continue their travel .Most of the pacifist strategies started by Martin Luther King, in August of 1963 the March in Washington in which he followed with more than over 200,000 American gave his famous speech demanding for civil and economic right for Afro-Americans.

This included things like the discrimination of gender, race, color, or national origin. If we didn’t have civil rights, our nation could be a much darker place than it is right now. There would be people of color who were enslaved and didn’t have voting rights or the right to have a job or the right to own any land or money. It would be very different to live in such a

Unbenounced to her, Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a white man ignited one of the largest and most successful mass movements in opposition to racial segregation in history. At a time when African Americans experienced racial discrimination from the law and within their own communities on a daily basis, they saw a need for radical change and the Montgomery bus boycott helped push them closer to achieving this goal. Unfortunately, much of black history is already excluded from textbooks, therefore to exclude an event as revolutionary to the civil rights movement as this one would be depriving individuals of necessary knowledge. The Montgomery bus boycott, without a doubt, should be included in the new textbook because politically