Circle of Time

Circle of Time. . , 1) In the 1940s, several Black bus passengers are arrested on Montgomery's public buses for sitting in "white-only" seats. Black citizens are repeatedly assaulted, harassed, and mistreated on racially segregated city buses, which become the primary space for unavoidable racial humiliation in the city., 2) In 1950, Hilliard Brooks Jr., a Black World War Il veteran, is shot to death by police after a white bus driver complains about a fare dispute. Mr. Brooks is one of three young Black men killed by police on Montgomery city buses between 1950 and 1953. , 3) Between March and October 1955, police arrest four Black women for refusing to give up their seats to white riders on Montgomery buses: , Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Mary Louise Smith, and Susie McDonald. , 4) On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person on a city bus. Four days later, she is found guilty of violating racial segregation laws and fined. , 5) Beginning December 5, 1955, 50,000 Black people, nearly every Black resident in Montgomery, take part in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and refuse to ride city buses. Black residents walk, bike, take taxis, carpool, and even ride mules and horse-drawn buggies to travel. The boycott would last 382 days. , 6) Montgomery Mayor W.A. Gayle joins the White Citizens' Council, an organization committed to opposing racial integration in Montgomery, sometimes violently. Police begin arresting boycott participants for minor or imagined traffic violations as part of the city's "get tough" policy. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested in January 1956 for allegedly driving 30 miles per hour in a 25 miles per hour speed zone. , 7) The home of Dr. King and Coretta Scott King is bombed. Two days later, the home of boycott leader E.D. Nixon is firebombed. The Montgomery Advertiser editors declare opposition to the bus boycott and integration and write, "There will be white rule as far as the eye can see." , 8) Attorney Fred Gray files Browder v. Gayle, a federal lawsuit challenging the racial segregation of Montgomery's city buses. City officials retaliate by attempting to have Mr. Gray prosecuted and disbarred. , 9) On February 22, 1956, police begin arresting over 100 Black boycott organizers, accusing them of violating an Alabama law that forbids boycotts without just cause." Mugshot photos of Black leaders are taken by the police, and during booking, most Black organizers hold their arrest numbers with pride. , 10) In August of 1950, the home of the Rev. Robert Graetz, a white pastor supportive of the boycott, is firebombed. The FBI begins COINTELPRO, which attempts to surveil, disrupt, and discredit civil rights activists, including Dr. King. A circuit court judge sides with the city in ruling that the organized Black carpool system is illegal, forcing more people to walk. , 11) In late fall of 1956, thousands of white residents attend a Ku Klux Klan rally in Montgomery to oppose integration. The Montgomery City Commission states that it will not yield one inch, but will do all in its power to oppose the integration of the Negro race with the white race in Montgomery, and will forever stand like a rock against social equality, intermarriage, and the mixing of races in the schools. , 12) On December 20, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds a legal victory for Black boycotters in Browder v. Gayle and orders the immediate integration of Montgomery's buses. The next day, in a major civil rights victory, Rosa Parks and thousands of Black residents ride Montgomery's buses and sit wherever they choose with no racial segregation for the first time.