The Tallahassee Bus Boycott

The Tallahassee Bus Boycott. Rev. K.C. Steele. , On May 26, 1956, two female students from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Patterson, sat down in the “whites only” section of a segregated bus in the city of Tallahassee. When they refused to move to the “colored” section at the rear of the bus, the driver pulled into a service station and called the police. Tallahassee police arrested Jakes and Patterson and charged them with "placing themselves in a position to incite a riot." In the days immediately following these arrests, students at FAMU organized a campus-wide boycott of city buses. Their collective stand against segregation set an example that propelled like-minded Tallahassee citizens into action. Soon, news of the boycott spread throughout the community. , , Reverend C.K. Steele orchestrated the formation of an organization known as the Inter-Civic Council to manage the logistics behind the boycott. Steele and other leaders created the ICC because of unfounded negative publicity surrounding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP faced persistent attacks from segregationists who claimed that the organization was a front for communist activity. Despite the local origins of the boycott, segregationists seized upon the notion that outside agitators, meaning communists from the NAACP, intended to use the case of Jakes and Patterson to inflame racial tensions in Tallahassee. The ICC devised a car pool system to provide transportation for African-Americans during the boycott. Reverend Steele was among those later arrested in connection with the car pools. The slogan for the movement, attributed to Steele, became "I would rather walk in dignity than ride in humiliation."