Smash Pacifism - Warrior Publications

uses were desegregated. King became involved in the
Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), an alliance
of churches, professional associations of teachers and
doctors, political and civic groups, that spearheaded the bus
desegregation campaign.
King was elected president of the MIA on
December 5 and proved a capable representative, having
strong oratory skills and self-confidence to deal with the
media. As a newcomer, he was also unaffected by local
factionalism and divisions. His
powerful charisma also motivated
community members, and
especially church-goers, to commit
to the campaign. King received
death threats and had his house
bombed during the year-long
boycott.
Although King rose to
fame through the campaign, and
later the SCLC, neither he nor the
Baptist preachers initiated the bus
boycott. It was at first organized by
the Women's Political Council, to
which Parks was a member. The
council had attempted through
negotiations with bus and city
officials to desegregate bus seating
from 1953-55, to no avail.
Nor was the Montgomery
bus boycott the first. Two years
prior, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a
bus boycott had occurred that, after
seven days, achieved victory. Some
cities, such as Atlanta, Georgia, and Mobile, Alabama, had
voluntarily desegregated bus seating. Although the MIA
members were unaware of the Baton Rouge boycott at first,
they would later seek advice on car-pooling and other
organizing matters from this previous campaign.
By September, 1955, another bus boycott had also
begun in Tallahassee, Florida, initiated by students. Here,
the boycott was countered by political manoeuvring by the
white elite, who were able to blunt the impacts of the
protest.
In Montgomery, the bus boycott continued for over
a year. In February, 1956, the MIA launched a lawsuit
against Montgomery's segregated buses. The case was
decided on June 4, when a US district court ruled that the
practise was unconstitutional. This would later be affirmed
in a supreme court decision in November. On December 20,
1956, federal injunctions prohibiting segregated buses were
served on city and bus company officials, and on December
21, Montgomery's buses were desegregated. One of the
greatest impacts of the bus boycott was the economic
impact on white-owned downtown businesses, who relied
largely on Black customers.
Armed Black slave in revolt, 1800s.
40
Civil Rights Organizations
The campaign for Black civil rights did not emerge
spontaneously in 1955, but was rooted in a long history of
Black struggle against white supremacy and slavery. This
included escapes, sabotage, attacks on slave owners,
murder, arson, rebellion, and armed resistance.
Although slavery was officially ended by the US
Civil War in the 1860s, the South was still legally
segregated and Blacks remained an
oppressed peoples. By the 1900s,
this struggle saw the emergence of a
number of organizations comprised
of middle-class Blacks and whites,
who advocated legal constitutional
change. Their main focus was civil
rights. Some of the national
organizations that would be involved
in the movements of the 1950s and
'60s civil rights campaigns were:
The National Association
for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP), established in
1910. As one of the most
conservative of the reformist groups,
the NAACP had for several decades
engaged almost exclusively in legal
and constitutional methods. It was
the NAACP that had won the 1954
Brown case on desegregated
schooling.
The Congress on Racial
Equality (CORE) was established in 1942 by Gandhian
pacifists from the Fellowship of Reconciliation. CORE
initiated the Freedom Rides of 1961 and coined the term
“nonviolent direct action.”
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) was established in 1960 during the sitin
protests by students. Its main effort was to register
voters, but it also organized civil disobedience campaigns.
At first it worked closely with the SCLC, but by 1963 was
beginning to distance itself. By 1966 it would emerge as a
main advocate of Black Power.
The National Urban League was founded in 1911
by wealthy Blacks and white philanthropists. It focused on
housing and unemployment, and was essentially a social
service organization. Although involved in some legal work
on housing and locating jobs, the NUL was not an
especially active component of the civil rights movement. It
would later be the largest recipient of government and
corporate funding in the 1960s.