What Barbershop didn't tell you about Rosa Parks

Ebony, Feb, 2003 by Lerone Bennett, Jr.

The message of the leaflets was plain and uncompromising:

DON'T RIDE THE BUS TO WORK, TO TOWN, TO SCHOOL, OR ANYPLACE MONDAY, DECEMBER 5.

ANOTHER NEGRO WOMAN HAS BEEN ARRESTED AND PUT IN JAIL TODAY BECAUSE SHE REFUSED TO GIVE UP HER BUS SEAT.

DON'T RIDE THE BUSES TO WORK, TO TOWN, TO SCHOOL, OR ANYWHERE ON MONDAY.

IF YOU WORK, TAKE A CAB, OR SHARE A RIDE, OR WALK.

COME TO A MASS MEETING MONDAY AT 7:00 P.M. AT THE HOLT STREET BAPTIST CHURCH FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTION.

No one knew then how the Black community would respond to this unprecedented appeal. The optimistic hoped for 50 or 60 percent support; the realistic--and the cynical--feared the worst.

It is clear now, but it was by no means clear then, that there was nothing to worry about. Between Friday afternoon and midnight on Sunday, there was a silent and profoundly effective plebiscite in the Black community of Montgomery. A thousand grievances, a thousand remembered slights welled up from the depths of the people. And by dawn on the first day of the Black Revolution, Monday, December 5, 1955, the fate and future direction of the movement had been decided--by the people.

This became clear when the first bus moved on Monday morning. There were swarms of Blacks, hunkered down in sweaters and overcoats on almost every street corner; and long lines of walkers filled the streets. But most Blacks waved the buses on, saying that they were not "gettin' on," as one man put it, "until Jim Crow gets off."

A Montgomery city policeman at Court Square said at 7:00 A.M that he had seen only two Blacks getting off buses. All that day, and into the night, the Black people of Montgomery walked, rode mules, and drove wagons. The boycott was almost totally effective and would remain so for days and weeks and months to come.

Emboldened by this first success, the Montgomery leaders called a 3:00 P.M. meeting at the Mount Zion AME Church to prepare for the scheduled 7:00 P.M. mass meeting. It was decided at this meeting to continue the boycott and to form a permanent organization. When the house was opened for nominations, Rufus Lewis seized the floor and, to the surprise of many, nominated the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for the presidency. King was only 26, and had been living in Montgomery for only a few months. But the nomination was carried without opposition, partly because he hadn't been in town long enough to create hard-core enemies, partly because there weren't that many candidates for a new position that was almost certainly going to lead to jail or worse.

It is well worth noting that Martin Luther King Jr. didn't hesitate or waffle at this critical moment in his life. Some of his friends expected him to decline the honor, as he had declined the presidency of the local NAACP chapter. But King surprised them, as he perhaps surprised himself, by stepping to the front of the room and coolly and deliberately taking charge.

Even as the leaders debated, long lines of men and women--maids, porters, teachers, leaders, students, laborers--were gathering before the doors of the Holt Street Baptist Church. By 7:00 P.M. the church was packed and 2,000 or 3,000 persons were standing silently in the surrounding streets, listening to the hymns and introductory statements on loudspeakers.