By Bill Mefford
Below is the script taken from the new podcast by Fig Tree Revolution.
Since we are in December, this is the month that those who follow Jesus are eagerly anticipating the birth of a baby in a barn in an obscure small town of Bethlehem who will grow up and ultimately change the world. So, it is appropriate that this is the month back in 1955 when the actions of an unknown, but revolutionary group of women, whose actions prepared the way for the birth of the modern-day Civil Rights Movement and the emergence of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as the movement’s most powerful and eloquent leader.
On December 1, 1955, a woman named Rosa Parks who worked part-time as a seamstress and also as the secretary of the local office of the NAACP, was arrested for sitting on a bus. Birmingham was segregated of course, and by refusing to give up her seat to a white man, she broke the law. While this action has been thought by many folks throughout history as a spur-of-the-moment action of a woman who was simply tired and not wanting to move, this was actually the work of an activist who had been trained in nonviolent disobedience.
In June of that same year, 1955, Rosa Parks had attended a week of training on nonviolence at Highlander Folk School, led by Myles Horton. Ms. Parks was recommended to attend to the training from a woman who had hired her as a part-time seamstress named Virginia Durr. Virginia Durr and her husband, a lawyer named Clifford, had been active in Democratic politics and because of their progressivism and their views advancing integration, they were targets of Mississippi Senator James Eastland who was holding hearings in the South, going after liberal whites who advocated for such communist ideas as eliminating the poll tax. The poll tax was one of the many ways used by Southern racists like Eastland to deny the right to vote to African Americans.
Because Virginia Durr fought against the poll tax, she and Clifford were targeted by Eastland and thus, they were ostracized in Montgomery by most of the white community, even among some so-called liberals. Many of their liberal white friends were cool with them talking about the harshness of southern racism, but they were not cool with actually risking anything to eliminate racism. The stress of losing their friends as well as business opportunities even caused a heart attack for Clifford.
Being shunned by the white community in Montgomery created more space for the Durrs to enter into relationships with Montgomery’s Black community. When they were ostracized, the Durrs’ only public support came from a group of women they had never heard of before: a group of African American women named the Women’s Political Council. The Women’s Political Council was led by Jo Ann Robinson. Virginia Durr reached out to Robinson and the other women to thank them for their support and thus began their friendship.
I am reminded at this point of their story of the African writer Albert Memmi, from Tunisia who wrote in the late 1950s, during the African independence movements. In his book, Memmi advises the those in positions of power and affluence who are penitent to, “take one more step…[and] complete [their] revolt to the full . . . adopt the colonized people and be adopted by them; let [them] become a turncoat” (1965:22). This is the difference between liberalism and liberation: while liberals hold views counter to unjust systems, the liberated, who were previously detached from those who suffer, now become authentically related with those who suffer, while at the same time, becoming detached from prior positions of safety and isolation. Liberals condemn injustice, the liberated are kin to those crushed by injustice.
For Virginia Durr, one of the people she found new solidarity with was seamstress and local NAACP secretary, Rosa Parks. Parks worked for the head of Montgomery’s NAACP chapter, E.D. Nixon, who was also an organizer for the Sleeping Car Porters. Because Highlander Folk School was an interracial training center to help build movements for leaders from racial, religious, and labor organizations in the South, E.D. Nixon, Virginia Durr, and Rosa Parks all knew one another. This is the power of organizing. It brings us into connections with others who share our passions and want to achieve real change. And this is how movements thrive when organizations connect and work with one another.
So, in June of 1955 - some six months prior to Rosa Parks refusing to move from her bus seat, Ms. Parks went to Highlander. It was there that she said, “I found out for the first time in my adult life that this can be a unified society, that there was such a thing as people of differing races and backgrounds meeting together in workshops living together in peace and harmony. It was a place I was very reluctant to leave. I gained there, strength to persevere in my work for freedom, not just for Blacks, but for all oppressed people.” (Adams, p. 122)
Her refusal to move from her seat for white bus rider on December 1 was thus not a spur-of-the-moment event, but rather, a planned move from someone trained in nonviolent civil disobedience who simply wanted to change things on the bus she rode nearly every day.
Interestingly, according to David Chappell’s book, Inside Agitators, another woman on the bus when Rosa Parks was arrested was Bertha Butler, who knew E.D. Nixon, the head of the local chapter of the NAACP, and was herself part of the Women’s Political Council - you remember them? This group, led by Jo Ann Robinson, was the same group who sent a supportive letter to activist Virginia Durr who was being hounded as a communist by Mississippi Senator James Eastland.
So, Bertha Butler also alerted Jo Ann Robinson and the Women’s Political Council who kicked into action.
Though the Montgomery Bus Boycott is mostly remembered by the action of Rosa Parks and the leadership of Martin Luther King, there would have been no year-long boycott if there hadn’t been the first day of the boycott, which was entirely due to Robinson and the Women’s Political Council.
Again, showing this was no spur-of-the-moment action, Jo Ann Robinson had been wanting to start the boycott for at least a year, if not much longer, because a year prior to Parks refusing to move, a young woman named Claudette Colbert had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat for white passengers. Robinson was not joined by other leaders in defending Colbert so nothing came of it, but with Parks, she mobilize them into action.
She immediately authored the text of a flyer calling for African Americans to boycott city buses. That night she and three others mimeographed thousands of flyers calling for a one-day boycott to start the following Monday, December 5, and distributed them throughout the city.
Here is what Robinson and the others did according to the documentary Eyes on the Prize (1:16-1:55): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OFf17EQ-Sc
And here is the text of the leaflet which Robinson and others handed out:
Another Negro woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down.
It is the second time since the Claudette Colbert case that a Negro women has been arrested for the same thing This has to be stopped.
Negroes have rights, too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negroes, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother.
This woman's case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don't ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday.
You can afford to stay out of school for one day if you have no other way to go except by bus.
You can also afford to stay out of town for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off of all buses Monday.
Amazingly, tens of thousands of African Americans who lived and worked in Montgomery stayed off the buses and they were mobilized in just two days.
Upon seeing the success of the one day boycott, Nixon formed the Montgomery Improvement Association and named the young, new pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church as its chair, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The rest, as they say, is history.
But what I am so thankful for this Christmas is the passion and skill of organizer, Jo Ann Robinson and the networking skills of Virginia Durr, and of course, the bravery of Rosa Parks.
I can’t help but think that in December of 1955, as this new boycott of buses took off, if Ms. Robinson, or Ms. Durr, or Ms. Parks thought about the song of Mary as she sang praise to God for giving her the gift that she would share with the world: the coming of the Liberator, Jesus
And Mary said in Luke 1:45-54,
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is God’s name. God’s mercy is for those who show reverence from generation to generation. God has shown great strength; and has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. God has helped the servant Israel, in remembrance of God’s mercy, according to the promise God made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to God’s descendants forever.”
Let’s repeat that one line again:
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
So, we bless Jo Ann Robinson, we bless Virginia Durr, we bless Rosa Parks.
Merry Christmas to you and let’s continue to work for real change.