Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T21:11:17.409Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social Movements and Social-Change Litigation: Synergy in the Montgomery Bus Protest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Christopher Coleman ,
Laurence D. Nee  and
Leonard S. Rubinowitz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Two competing schools of thought have emerged to explain how the Montgomery bus protest of 1955–56 brought about changes on the city's Jim Crow buses. The dominant explanation attributes the changes to the bus boycott led by Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Montgomery Improvement Association. A second interpretation emphasizes the critical role of the Supreme Court's decision striking down the state and local bus segregation laws. This essay prooides a third explanation: that these two strategies–the boycott and the litigation–interacted, each shaping and reinforcing the other. Each strategy war a critical part of the struggle, but neither brought change by itself. This essay argues that the two strategies of the Montgomery protest created a synergy that was the key to bringing about changes on the buses.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , Fall 2005 , pp. 663 - 736
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2005 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abernathy, Ralph. 1989. The Natural History of a Social Movement: The Montgomery Improvement Association. In Garrow 1989a.Google Scholar
Abernathy, Ralph. 1991. And the Walls Came Tumbling Down. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Azbell, Joe. 1955. 5,000 at Meeting Outline Boycott; Bullet Clips Bus. Montgomery Advertiser, Dec. 5, 1A.Google Scholar
Azbell, Joe. 1956. Mayor Stops Boycott Talk. Montgomery Advertiser, Jan. 24, 1A.Google Scholar
Baldwin, Lewis V., and Woodson, Aprille V. 1992. Freedom Is Never Free. Atlanta: Aprille Woodson.Google Scholar
Barnes, Catherine A. 1983. Journey from Jim Crow: The Desegregation of Southern Transit. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Hartley, Numan V. 1969. The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South during the 1950s. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
Bass, Jack. 1994. Taming the Storm: The Life and Times of Judge Frank Johnson, M. Jr. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Bennett, Lerone Jr. 1970. When the Man and the Hour Are Met. In Lincoln 1970.Google Scholar
Biondi, Martha. 2003. To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Birt, Geoffrey. 1954. Alabama Leaders to “Wait and See” on Supreme Court School Decision. Montgomery Advertiser, May 18, 1A.Google Scholar
Black and White Dominos. 1957. New Republic, April 8, 5.Google Scholar
Black Belt Areas Making No Plans to Desegregate. 1954. Montgomery Advertiser, May 20, A1.Google Scholar
Black's Law Dictionary. 1999. 7th ed. Paul, St., Minn.: West Publishing.Google Scholar
Branch, Taylor. 1988. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Brinkley, Douglas. 2000. Rosa Parks. New York: Penguin Group.Google Scholar
Burns, Stewart, ed. 1997. Daybreak of Freedom. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Cargile, Trudy. 1954. Sparks Asserts Supreme Court Crucified Dixie. Montgomery Advertiser, May 20, A1.Google Scholar
Carriers Are Removing Signs in Compliance with the ICC Order. 1956. Alabama Journal, Jan. 10, 1A.Google Scholar
Carson, Claybourne, et al., eds. 1997. The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Vol. 3, Birth of a New Age. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
City Commission States Position on Bus Services. 1956. Montgomery Advertiser, Jan. 22, 1A.Google Scholar
Court's Ruling All Republican, Leaders Claim. 1954. Montgomery Advertiser, May 21, A1.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberle Williams 1988. Race, Reform, and Retrenchment: Transformation in Anti-Discrimination Law. Harvard Law Review 101: 1331–87.Google Scholar
Decree Rapped by Southerners as “Invasion,” 1954. Montgomery Advertiser, May 18, A1.Google Scholar
Dixie Leaders to Hold Parley on School Case. 1954. Montgomery Advertiser, May 21, A1.Google Scholar
Dixie “Manifesto” Going before Congress Monday. 1956. Montgomery Advertiser, March 10, 3B.Google Scholar
Dixie Politicos Run Full Scale: Anger, Caution. 1954. Montgomery Advertiser, May 18, A1.Google Scholar
Dixie Practice Hit by Attacks from All Sides. 1955. Montgomery Advertiser, July 15, 1A.Google Scholar
Durr, Virginia 1990. Outside the Magic Circle: The Autobiography of Virginia Foster Durr. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
E-mail from Aldon Morris, Professor, Northwestern University, to Leonard Rubinowitz, Professor, Northwestern University. 2003. On file with the authors. May 31.Google Scholar
E-mail from J. Mills Thornton III, Professor, University of Michigan, to Leonard Rubinowitz, Professor, Northwestern University. 2002a. On file with the authors. Aug. 24.Google Scholar
Mills Thornton, J. III 2002b. On file with the authors. Aug. 25.Google Scholar
Eisenhower Asks Reports of Capital School Change. 1954. Montgomery Advertiser, May 19, A1.Google Scholar
Eskew, Glenn T. 1997. But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Adam. 1987. To Redeem the Soul of America: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr. Athens: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Farmer, James 1985. Lay Bare the Heart: An Autobiography of the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Arbor House.Google Scholar
Freeman, Jack. 1954. Students at Lanier Shocked by Supreme Court Decision. Montgomery Advertiser, May 18, A1.Google Scholar
Funds for New Schools Stopped by Gov. Byrnes. 1954. Montgomery Advertiser, May 21, A1.Google Scholar
Garrett Calling State Solicitors to Confer on Schools Decision 1954. Montgomery Advertiser, May 21, A1.Google Scholar
Garrow, David. 1978. Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson Publishing, Inc.Google Scholar
Garrow, David. 1986. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: William Morrow.Google Scholar
Garrow, David. ed. 1989a. The Walking City. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson Publishing, Inc.Google Scholar
Garrow, David. 1989b. Foreword. In Garrow 1989a.Google Scholar
Garrow, David. 1989c. The Origins of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.Google Scholar
Garrow, David. 1994. Hopelessly Hollow History: Revisionist Devaluing of Brown v. Board of Education. Virginia Law Review 80: 151–60.Google Scholar
Georgia Asks Attorneys General to Atlanta Huddle on Decision. 1954. Montgomery Advertiser, May 20, A1.Google Scholar
Gilliam, Thomas J. 1989. The Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–1956. In Garrow 1989a.Google Scholar
Glen, John M. 1988. Highlander: No Ordinary School, 1932–1962. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.Google Scholar
Glennon, Robert Jerome 1991. The Role of Law in the Civil Rights Movement. Law and History Review 9: 59–112.Google Scholar
Graetz, Robert S. 1999. A White Preacher's Memoir: The Montgomery Bus Boycott. Montgomery, Ala.: Black Belt Press.Google Scholar
Graglia, Lino. 1976. Disaster by Decree: The Supreme Court Decisions on Race and the Schools. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gray, Fred D. 1995. Bus Ride to Justice. Montgomery, Ala.: Black Belt Press.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Jack. 1994. Crusaders in the Courts. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Hair, Penda D. 2001. Louder than Words: Lawyers, Communities, and the Struggle for Justice. New York: Rockefeller Foundation.Google Scholar
Hampton, Henry, and Steve, Payer 1991. Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s. New York: Bantam Books.Google Scholar
Harris, J. Tyra. 1978. Alabama Reaction to the Brown Decision, 1954–1956: A Case Study in Early Massive Resistance. Ph.D. diss. Department of History, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro .Google Scholar
Hunter, Tera 1997. To “Joy My Freedom”: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors after the Civil War. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Integrated Bus Suggestions. 1956. Dec. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Interview by Christopher Coleman with Fred Gray. 2001. Tuskeegee, Ala. Aug. 21.Google Scholar
Interview by Eliot Wigginton with Rosa Parks. 1981. Highlander Research and Education Center. New Market, Tenn.Google Scholar
Interview by Willie M. Lee with Maid. 1956. Jan. 20. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Jarrett, Vernon 1975. Bus Boycott Hero Remembers. Chicago Tribune, Dec. 3, 6.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Randall 1989. Martin Luther King's Constitution: A Legal History of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Yale Law Journal 98: 999–1067.Google Scholar
King, Martin Luther Jr. 1956a. Our Struggle, Liberation. April. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
King, Martin Luther Jr. 1956b. Speech to the Institute on Nonviolence and Social Change. Dec. 3. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
King, Martin Luther Jr. 1956c. We are Still Walking. Dec. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
King, Martin Luther Jr. 1958. Stride toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. San Francisco: Harper.Google Scholar
King, Martin Luther Jr. 1971. Foreword. In Kunstler, William. 1971. Deep in My Heart. New York: Morrow.Google Scholar
Klinkner, Phillip A., with Smith, Rogers M. 1999. The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kluger, Richard 1975. Simple Justice. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Kruse, Kevin Michael 2000. White Flight: Resistance to Desegregation of Neighborhoods, Schools and Businesses in Atlanta. Ph.D. diss. Department of History, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y .Google Scholar
Lee, Willie M. 1956. The Bombing Episode. Jan.31. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Letter from Clifford J. Durr to Carey McWilliams. 1956a. Nov. 16. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Lee, Willie M. 1956b. Dec. 19. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Letter from Jo Ann Robinson to W. A. Gayle. 1954, May 21. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Letter from John M. Swomley, Jr., to Glenn E. Smiley.1956. March 1. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Letter from Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King, Jr., to Alabama Clergy. 1956. Nov. 30. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Letter from Rev. Robert Graetz to Attorney General Herbert Brownell. 1956. Sept. 4. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Letter from Roy Wilkins to W. C. Patton. 1955. Dec. 27. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Leventhal, Willy S., et al. 1998. “Drum Major for Justice … Drum Major for Peace”: Recitals on the Unfinished Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In Leventhal, Willy S., et al., eds. 1998. The Children Coming On: A Retrospective of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Montgomery: Black Belt Press.Google Scholar
Lofgren, Charles A. 1987. The “Plessy” Case: A Legal-Historical Interpretation. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
The Long Walk Home. 1991. Artisan Entertainment.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane 2001. The Making of Oppositional Consciousness. In Mansbridge, Jane, and Aldon, Morris et al., eds. 2001. Oppositional Consciousness: The Subjective Roots of Social Protest. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McCann, Michael 1992. Reform Litigation on Trial. Law and Social Inquiry 17: 715–43.Google Scholar
McCann, Michael 1994. Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McWhorter, Diane. 2001. Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama; The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Meyer, Stephen 2000. As Long as They Don't Live Next Door. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
MIA Advertisement. 1955. To the Montgomery Public. Dec. 25. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
MIA Newsletter. 1956. Sept. 21. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
MIA Newsletter. 1957. March 8. In Leventhal 1998a.Google Scholar
MIA Press Release Announcing Southern Negro Leaders Conference 1957. 7 Jan. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Millner, Steven M. 1989. The Montgomery Bus Boycott: A Case Study in the Emergence and Career of a Social Movement. In Garrow 1989a.Google Scholar
Minutes of MIA Executive Board “Call” Meeting. 1956. Jan. 30. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Minutes of MIA Executive Board Meeting. 1956. Jan. 23. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Millner, Steven M. 1956. Nov. 14. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Minutes of MIA Founding Meeting 1955. Dec. 5. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Montgomery Advertiser. 1954. May 18.Google Scholar
Millner, Steven M. 1956a, Dec. 18.Google Scholar
Millner, Steven M. 1957a, Jan. 9. In MIA Newsletter 1957.Google Scholar
Montgomery Board of Commissioners Statement on Supreme Court Decision. 1956. Dec. 17. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Morris, Aldon 1984. The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Myrdal, Gunnar 1944. An American Dilemma. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers.Google Scholar
NAACP Attorney Already Pledged to “Cooperation.” 1954. Montgomery Advertiser, May 18, A1.Google Scholar
Negro Minister Denies Effort to End Segregation on Buses. 1955. Alabama Journal, Dec. 7, 13A.Google Scholar
Negroes Get Bus Classes: Montgomery Ministers and Others Give Instructions regarding Integration. 1956. Chattanooga Times, Dec. 15. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Owens, Wesley 1954. NAACP Told Big Struggle Resting Ahead. Montgomery Advertiser, Nov. 14, 1A.Google Scholar
Plotkin, Wendy 1999. Deeds of Mistrust: Race, Housing, and Restrictive Covenants in Chicago. Ph.D. diss. Department of History, University of Illinois, Chicago .Google Scholar
Powe, Lucas A. Jr. 2000. The Warren Court and American Politics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Private System of Schools Hit as Impractical. 1954. Montgomery Advertiser, May 19, A1.Google Scholar
Raines, Howell 1983. My Soul Is Rested: Movement Days in the Deep South Remembered. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.Google Scholar
Reddick, L. D. 1989. The Bus Boycott in Montgomery. In Garrow 1989a.Google Scholar
Roberts, J. M. Jr., 1954. Only Time Will Tell if Result Makes Convulsion Worthwhile. Montgomery Advertiser, May 18, A1.Google Scholar
Robinson, Jo Ann Gibson, and Garrow, David 1987. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, Eleanor 1956a. Liberation. Dec. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, Eleanor 1956b. My Day. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald N. 1991. The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring about Social Change? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald N. 1996. Positivism, Interpretivism, and the Study of Law. Law & Social Inquiry 21 (Spring): 435–56.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald N. 1998. Knowledge and Desire: Thinking about Courts and Social Change. In Schultz, David A. ed. 1998. Leveraging The Law. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Rubinowitz, Leonard S. and Imani, Perry 2002. Crimes without Punishment: White Neighbors' Resistance to Black Entry. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 92: 335–428.Google Scholar
Rubinowitz, Leonard S., and Elizabeth, Ttosman 1919. Affirmative Action and the American Dream: Implementing Fair Housing Policies in Federal Homeownership Programs. Northwestern University Law Review 74: 491–616.Google Scholar
Rustin, Bayard 1956a. Working Paper #1: The Meaning of the Bus Protest in the Southern Struggle For Total Integration. Jan. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Rustin, Bayard 1956b. Report on Montgomery, Alabama. March 21. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Rustin, Bayard 1956c. Montgomery Diary, Liberation. Feb. 22. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Rustin, Bayard 1957a. Working Paper #3: Unified Planning for Bus Integration. Jan. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Rustin, Bayard 1957b. Working Paper #7: The Role of Law in Our Struggle: Its Advantages and Limitations. Jan. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Salmond, John A. 1990. The Conscience of a Lawyer: Clifford J. Durr and American Civil Liberties, 1899–1975. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama.Google Scholar
Seay, Solomon Snowden 1990. I Was There by the Grace of God. Montgomery, Ala.: Seay, S. S. Sr., Educational Foundation.Google Scholar
Sellers, Clyde 1955. Campaign Advertisement. Montgomery Advertiser, March 20. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Sheehan, Will T. 1956. Overbearing Bus Drivers. Montgomery Advertiser, Jan. 4. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Sikora, Frank 1992. The Judge: The Life and Opinions of Alabama's Frank Johnson, M. Jr. Montgomery, Ala.: Black Belt Press.Google Scholar
A Statement to the South and Nation. 1957. Jan. 11. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Thomas, Rex 1954. Educators, Legislators Continuing Search for Answers to School Segregation Problem. Montgomery Advertiser, March 12, 2D.Google Scholar
Thornton, J. Mills III 1989. Challenge and Response in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–1956. In Garrow 1989a.Google Scholar
Thornton, J. Mills III 2002. Dividing Lines. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Transcript of Browder v. Gayle (1956).Google Scholar
Transcript of City of Montgomery v. Rosa Parks. 1955. Circuit Court of Montgomery County. “Agreed Stipulation of Facts,” no. 4559.Google Scholar
Transcript of State of Alabama v. M.L. King, Jr. 1956. March 1922. In Burns 1997.Google Scholar
Tushnet, Mark 1987. The NAACP's Legal Strategy against Segregated Education, 1925–1950. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Tushnet, Mark 1994. Making Civil Rights Law. Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1936–1961. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tuskegee Making No Plans Yet for Admitting White Students. 1954. Montgomery Advertiser, May 19, 2D.Google Scholar
Walton, Norman W. 1989. Bus Boycott. In Garrow 1989a.Google Scholar
White-Negro Signs Ordered. 1956. Birmingham News, Feb. 10, 1A.Google Scholar
Wilhoit, Francis M. 1973. The Politics of Massive Resistance. New York: Braziller.Google Scholar
Williams, Juan 1987. Eyes on the Prize. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Williams, Juan 1998. Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary. New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
Will the Circle Be Unbroken? 1997. An Audio History of the Civil Rights Movement in Five Southern Communities and the Music of Those Times. PRI syndicated broadcast. Transcript, http://www.unbrokencircle.org.Google Scholar
Wilkins, Roy 1994. Standing Fast. New York: Da Capo Press.Google Scholar
Wypijewski, JoAnn 2000. Back to the Back of the Bus. Nation, Dec. 25, 18.Google Scholar
Yeakey, Lamont H. 1979. The Montgomery Alabama Bus Boycott, 1955–1956. Ph.D. diss. Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, N.Y .Google Scholar