Notes
187 Notes Prologue 1. Among works that have explored the impact of Montgomery on the broader civil rights movement, see Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement; Branch, Parting the Waters; Fairclough, To Redeem the Soul of America; Garrow, Bearing the Cross; and D. Williams, with Greenhaw, The Thunder of Angels. Several recent works have elevated the roles played by Jo Ann Robinson, Mary Fair Burks, Rosa Parks, and E. D. Nixon in laying the groundwork for the bus boycott. See, for instance, Garrow, ed., The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It; Dyson, I May Not Get There with You, 202–4; Burns, To The Mountaintop, 19–25; and D. Williams, with Greenhaw, The Thunder of Angels. 2. Over the past few decades, several historians have examined the significant role people in local communities played in preparing the way for and leading the civil rights movement. Others have also helpfully examined the connections of labor to the civil rights movement. See, for example, Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom; Dittmer, Local People; Fairclough , Race and Democracy; Eick, Dissent in Wichita; Whitaker, Race Work; Theoharis and Woodard, eds., Groundwork; Honey, Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights; Korstad, Civil Rights Unionism; and Minchin, The Color of Work. 3. Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom, 417–18. 4. Pittsburgh Courier, December 7, 1957. 5. Eskew, But for Birmingham. Over the last few years of King’s life, he began to participate more directly in efforts to bring about economic justice, as evidenced in his support for the striking Memphis sanitation workers and in his organization of the interracial Poor People’s Campaign. 6. Branch, Parting the Waters, 558. 7. Garrow, ed., The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It; Crawford, Rouse, and Woods, eds., Women in the Civil Rights Movement. For more on the contributions of women to the struggle, see CollierThomas and Franklin, Sisters in the Struggle. For a detailed study of the life and contributions of Ella Baker, see Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement. Gender analysis of the civil rights era is beginning to consider the construction of masculinity (see Estes, I Am a Man!). 8. Johnny E. Williams, African American Religion and the Civil Rights Movement in Arkansas; Chappell, A Stone of Hope; and Marsh, The Beloved Community. 9. The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. 6. 10. Branch, Parting the Waters, 225; Branch, Pillar of Fire, 24. 11. MIA mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church, December 5, 1955, in The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 3: 71. 12. Rosa Parks to Mrs. Henry F. Shepherd, July 6, 1955, Mss 265, Folder 22, Box 22, Highlander Research and Education Center. 1. “The Stirring of the Water” 1. Montgomery Advertiser, April 14, 1952: “The new section of seats in the bowl will be reserved for Negroes”; “Just three minutes before the annual Easter Sunrise Service was to begin in Cramton Bowl yesterday, the rain, which had been falling steadily, stopped.” Portia Trenholm, “Memoirs ,” April 17, 1958, Portia Trenholm Papers. This twelve-page document, composed during the bus boycott, includes a cover letter from the Alabama State College professor L. D. Reddick to Portia Trenholm dated April 17, 1958. While the Montgomery Advertiser stories regarding the service indicate blacks attended in 1952, articles about the 1953 event do not mention African American attendees or the availability of bus services for the event (Montgomery Advertiser, April 14, 1952, April 3, 6, 1953). 2. While many historians have examined the Montgomery bus boycott in great detail, few have given serious attention to the climate in the city in the years prior to King’s arrival in 1954. Those who do consider this period tend to consider only particular aspects of the situation. For instance, Taylor Branch focuses primarily on the tenure of Vernon Johns at Dexter (Parting the Waters, 1–26). Dividing Lines, J. Mills Thornton’s recent work on Montgomery, Selma, and Birmingham, does an excellent job chronicling the political and demographic shifts facing Montgomery following World War II. Thornton recognizes the major African American voices that set the scene for the civil rights movement, yet his attention remains fixed on the political ramifications of the city’s demographic shifts. Montgomery’s white citizens who worked against white supremacy escape Thornton’s notice. Willy Leventhal has highlighted many of the white participants who had an impact on Montgomery, including Clifford and Virginia Durr, Aubrey Williams, Juliette Morgan...
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