“The Whole World Is Watching:” The Montgomery Bus Boycott and a Marathon to Justice

By Cole Manley

Downtown Montgomery

When I think about why the Montgomery Bus Boycott (December 5, 1955 - December 20, 1956) matters today, there are so many places my mind goes. With a country being jolted awake by the Black Lives Matter movement, organizers are drawing on some of the legacies and strategies of the post-World War II civil rights movement. But I keep coming back to one fairly obvious but enormously powerful lesson: the Montgomery Bus Boycott was a marathon to justice.

A marathon 382 days long. A marathon built on the unity of more than 40,000 Black people in Montgomery, Alabama who stayed off the buses. A marathon which can offer a sobering and inspirational account of what it takes--and how long it can take--to win political change.

Every social movement goes through periods of rising and falling action, periods of inspiration and times of doubt. After several weeks of daily massive protests across the country, the Black Lives Matter movement must now contend with a new stage in the struggle. When media looks elsewhere for stories, the organizing and mobilizing continues. It’s up to organizers to keep up the “groundwork.” Montgomery organizers had been sowing the seeds of the Boycott for years before it emerged in 1955, and their resolve and dedication are important reminders of what’s needed in a marathon to justice.

The 382 days Black Montgomery citizens walked and carpooled together, before a Supreme Court ruling outlawed segregation on public buses, required a level of dedication in the face of white supremacist and state sponsored violence that continues to inspire activists today.

It was a feat of physical and mental endurance that unfolded each and every day. Black people in Montgomery risked verbal and physical assault as they walked miles to and from work, rain or shine. While there was an extensive carpool system that operated across the city, there were only so many cars in service. Many Black people--young and old--took to walking as a way of demonstrating their commitment to the struggle. Although they won desegregation on Montgomery buses, their marathon to justice encompassed an array of political objectives beyond legal victories.

Jo Ann Robinson, Montgomery County Archives

Jo Ann Robinson, longtime member of the Montgomery Women’s Political Council and a Black English professor at Alabama State College (seen in the image to the right), played a crucial and under-recognized role in launching and sustaining the Boycott (scholarship and media accounts largely downplayed the fact that Black women made up most of the movement’s most important organizers). After Rosa Parks was arrested, Robinson mimeographed some 50,000 leaflets which she then helped distribute to Montgomery’s Black community. The leaflet read: “Don’t ride the bus to work, to town, to school, or any place Monday, December 5.” Without these leaflets, the Boycott would not have had the nearly-universal support from Black people that Monday. Printing and distributing these leaflets was an act of organizational brilliance.

In just a few months, Robinson understood that the Boycott had transcended the local politics of desegregation to become a movement of global importance. In a March 1956 address to hundreds of Black people in Montgomery, she explained that “[t]he whole world is watching the boycott… France, England, India are sending reporters here, because this is not a case, it is a social movement. The whole world respects us. I have never been so proud to be a Negro before.” Her address came at a critical moment during the struggle. White supremacists--police and vigilantes--violently attacked Black boycotters.

They bombed Martin Luther King, Jr.’s home (shown in the image here) with his wife and infant daughter inside. A few weeks later, police poured acid onto Robinson’s car.

In order to keep the Boycott going amid such violence and intimidation, Robinson realized that the movement had to draw upon the deep motivations underlying the struggle. This was about much more than desegregation. The movement had become about dignity, freedom, and justice.

For Robinson, the Boycott became evidence of the power of Montgomery’s Black community when it looked past class differences and united in struggle. The nonviolent movement, she would write just a few months later, “has freed the hearts and minds of Negro Montgomerians, who [are] learning for the first time the real meaning of love.”

Eventually, in December 1956, more than a year after Parks’ arrest, a Supreme Court ruling went into effect and desegregated public buses. But, the struggle for freedom continues to this day.

In part through the groundbreaking work of the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), led by civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson, the Boycott remains a highly relevant and important story. (You can donate to my Facebook fundraiser for the EJI here). A story that must be understood while acknowledging the white supremacist violence that these boycotters overcame. Montgomery’s downtown business district was once the heart of Alabama’s slave trade, when slave warehouses lined Commerce Street, and it now features historical markers acknowledging this painful history.

Nearby stands EJI’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which acknowledges the thousands of Black men, women, and children who were victims of “racial terror lynchings.” Along with remembering this history, downtown Montgomery also honors the organizing of Boycott leaders with various plaques and a new statue of Rosa Parks.

EJI’s memorial and its nearby Legacy Museum have sparked conversations about victories and setbacks during movements for racial and economic justice in the United States. These institutions have also generated a boom in tourism to Montgomery, helping revitalize the downtown area. The New York Times reported in May of 2019 that the Museum and Memorial attracted more than 400,000 more visitors to Montgomery than in the year before. Just as the whole world watched the Boycott as it progressed in 1956, today, the world comes to visit Montgomery.

When I visited the Museum and Memorial in June of 2019, along with thousands of other visitors that day, I was struck by a few things. I had never been in a museum where so many people were so viscerally affected by what they were reading and seeing. Men and women openly cried. There was a level of engagement with the exhibits of the Museum--a level of care and awareness--that I found hopeful. It seemed that visitors were not simply passing through the Museum, on their way to some other tourist stop, but that they were letting themselves fully encounter the stories being presented.

I was also aware that this was not just a local or even national audience. Tourists were arriving from France, the UK, Australia. Two women I met in Montgomery were touring the United States from Australia and made a point of traveling through Alabama. They had read Bryan Stevenson’s powerful book, Just Mercy, and were deeply moved by the Museum and the Memorial. They reflected on their visit by connecting the Black struggle for freedom in the United States to the plight of indigenous Australians.

From across the nation and around the world, visitors are forced to grapple with the complexity of Montgomery’s history. The city that was once a center of the nation's slave trade. The city where racial terror lynchings took place, where racial segregation restricted all facets of life.

But a city which also sparked a bus boycott that in turn inspired nonviolent protests across the United States and around the world. A city which saw a marathon to justice unfold over the course of 382 days. A city which offers lessons for organizers about endurance in struggles for justice. And, just as possibly, a city where new commitments are being made to modern-day racial and economic justice movements.

This week, watch this 2 minute video from the Equal Justice Initiative: “For America to move forward, we must confront our past.” You can donate to my Facebook fundraiser for the EJI here. My next post will publish Saturday, July 18th. If you have stories you would like to share about running and social movements, please contact me via email (marathontojustice@gmail.com) or Facebook. Your story may be the next blog post!