The Montgomery Bus Protests 1955-1956

Vaughn studies the life and influence of Jo Ann Robinson, a member of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, as a female mastermind who orchestrated the entire affair of the two bus boycotts. People in Montgomery had been laboring to address public transit issues for decades. It was Robinson who recruited Rosa Parks. She helped hire a young African American attorney to defend Parks, whom she urged to deliberately challenge the standards on Thursday, December 1. Vaughn writes that it was Robinson who held off a young well-meaning bail poster, E.D. Nixon, while the strategy played out over the weekend, including supervising Saturday's election of young pastor Martin Luther King, Jr., to a new leadership position. While King would rise to national prominence, the women at the heart of Montgomery's protest strove to make an indigenous movement into a reality.