The Bus Boycott in Montgomery

The Bus Boycott in Montgomery

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Suddenly, Montgomery, Alabama, has become one of the world’s most interesting cities. It is a handsome little town, restful for an ex-urbanite. In its center is a spacious circle with gently flowing water-spray, covered by soft lights in the evening. From it one looks down the main avenue to the white marble Capitol. Here markers tell the visitor where Jefferson Davis stood when he swore allegiance to the Southern Confederacy.

But it is not the White House of the Confederacy, preserved
in Montgomery by aged daughters of the Lost Cause,
that attracted the newspaper men, sociologists, and just plain
visitors who have been floating in and out these past few
weeks. It is the bus boycott. The metropolitan dailies have
on the scene what have been jokingly called “war correspondents
covering the Southern front.” And there are journalists from Japan, England, France.

With all the odds against it, the Negro community of Montgomery has initiated and sustained what is easily the most creative approach yet made to the crisis in race relations. And even those of us who have watched developments u...