Students will be able to identify who organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott and who participated in it.Â
Students will analyze the reasons why the bus boycott lasted so long and why it was successful.Â
Students will evaluate the importance of political organization and participation by ordinary people to effect social change. Â
Step 1: Tell students that they will be looking at how the black community of Montgomery, Alabama supported and organized a year-long boycott to protest unfair treatment of black riders in the Jim Crow South. Students will watch a film clip and then analyze primary source documents to determine why the boycott lasted as long as it did.Â
Explain what has happened in the film before the clip:
From Brown vs. Board of Education to the case of Emmett Till, African Americans across the South grew outwardly discontented with segregation and the hostile (sometimes violent) attacks imposed upon them by white Americans.
Acts of personal courage had taken place on public transportation (i.e., Claudette Colvin, 15-year-old student at Booker T. Washington High School in Montgomery, refused to give up her seat 9 months before Rosa Parks, a secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP).
Organizing groups like the Women's Political Council of Montgomery had documented unfair treatment of blacks on busses.Â
Activists had determined that a boycott of a city transportation system was a good opportunity to launch a campaign for fair and equal treatment in public spaces.Â
Step 2: Pose to students the following preview question to listen for as they watch the clip:
Who participated in the Montgomery bus boycott? And how did they organize to meet the challenges of the boycott? Â
Play clip (Chapter 6; 32:16-42:01). After viewing, share out responses to the preview questions and follow up by asking:
In what ways did group solidarity play a role in sustaining the bus boycott?Â
Step 3: Divide students into mixed-ability groups of five. Pass out a packet of the five primary sources to each group and a copy of the graphic organizer to each student. In their groups, working independently or as a whole, students should analyze each source for evidence that helps us understand why the bus boycott lasts so long. (If students work independently on one document, they should then share their document and the evidence they found with their group members.) Students should categorize their evidence according to the graphic organizer: evidence of intolerable conditions on the busses, strong organization by activist leaders, and/or community support.Â
After students have gathered evidence from all the documents, they should independently respond to the writing prompt, citing evidence from the graphic organizer to support their answers.Â
Writing Prompt: Using evidence from the chart you filled in, write a paragraph explaining why the bus boycott lasted so long.
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Step 4: (Optional) Have students share out responses from their essays. Conclude with discussion of the following:
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What does the Montgomery Bus Boycott tell us about the ability of ordinary people to affect the political process? What are the opportunities and limitations for ordinary people to influence the political process?Â
This worksheet aligns to Common Core Literacy Standards in History/Social Studies:
• RHSS.6-8.1. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.
This stuff has been going on for a long time. To tell you the truth, it's been happening ever since I came here before [World War II]. But here in the last few years they've been getting worse and worse. When you get on the bus they yell: "Get on back there"... and half of the time they wouldn't take your transfer, then they make you get up so white men could sit down [when] there were no seats in the back. And you know about a year ago they put one of the high school girls in jail 'cause she wouldn't move. They should have boycotted the buses then. But we are sure fixing 'em now and I hope we don't ever start back riding....
They shouldn't make me get up for some white person when I paid the same fare and I got on first. And they should stop being so nasty... We pay just like the white folks... [The bus companies] are the ones losing the money and our preachers say we will not ride unless they give us what we want...
February 24
42,000 Negroes have not ridden the busses since December 5. On December 6, the police began to harass, intimidate, and arrest Negro taxi drivers who were helping get these people to work. It thus became necessary for the Negro leaders to find an alternative--the car pool.
They set up 23 dispatch centers where people gather to wait for free transportation. This morning Rufus Lewis, director of the pool, invited me to attend the meeting of the drivers. On the way, he explained that there are three methods in addition to the car pool, for moving the Negro population:
1) Hitch-hiking.
2) The transportation of servants by white housewives.
3) Walking.
Later he introduced me to two men, one of whom has walked 7 miles and the other 14 miles, every day since December 5.
"The success of the car pool is at the heart of the movement," Lewis said at the meeting."
It must not be stopped." I wondered what the response of the drivers would be, since 28 of them had just been arrested on charges of conspiring to destroy the bus company. One by one, they pledged that, if necessary, they would be arrested again and again.
Students will determine the roles of ordinary people, especially women, in the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Â
Students will compare and contrast their own narratives of the Montgomery Bus Boycott with the story of local issues and local activists that emerges from three primary sources. Â
Step 1: Pass out "Expanding the Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott" worksheet. Ask students to take a moment and brainstorm their thoughts and impressions of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This is an informal writing exercise, so they can create a concept map or write a paragraph.
Step 2: Tell students that we started out by looking at what they already know about the civil rights movement, and now they are going to see how asking questions about women, ordinary people, and local issues widens the picture of civil rights a bit. Â Pass out three Montgomery Bus Boycott documents. Â
Step 3: Have students read the documents and answer the questions. Â Students can work individually or in small groups. Â
Step 4: Go over students responses. Â The main points are outlined below:
Women played a major role by organizing the Women's Political Council, by typing up and distributing the notices, by spreading the word in the community. Some of these actions reflected women's roles as secretaries (access to typewriters and mimeographs) and in phone tree networks. Women displayed impressive organization skills, persistence, and purposeful political goals, unlike some previous ideas about women and African Americans in the South in the time period. Â
Yes, there is evidence of local issues. There is an organized network of the Women's Political Council, already in place after 1946, showing that problems with the buses had been an ongoing problem in Montgomery. Activists show that they know they have power, since they're 3/4 of ridership. They use their position in the community. They come up with a solution that makes sense in Montgomery. Â
Montgomery's buses were desegregated. Â Possible problems they still faced: segregated schools and other public facilities, lower wages and poorer housing...
Step 5: Ask students to reflect (in discussion or writing) about how these documents challenge their previous ideas about the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the civil rights movement. Â