THE CAMPAIGNS TO END RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

The goal is for students to gain background knowledge of the history of the
four major civil rights campaigns to end discrimination of black people in the
southern region of the United States.
Students will understand how the philosophy and methodology of
Nonviolence determined the success of these campaigns.
Students will understand that those who nonviolently resisted during the
campaigns achieved their goal to end legal segregation.
NOTE for teachers: In your school decide which grade will teach which
campaign, so that students learn about a different campaign each year.
Introductory procedure for each campaign:
1. Show the location of the campaign on a map.
2. Show a video about the campaign (see Video bibliography or find one
online). Students can fill in an Empathy Map as they view the video. Put
students in small groups after the movie is over. Students in each group
will create one Empathy Map, compiling the information each entered on
the Empathy Map they filled in while watching the movie. The Empathy
Map can have drawings, words, phrases, symbols, etc. The goal is for
students to have conversations about what they saw in the movie. Have
groups share their Empathy Maps once they are completed.
3. Students read online newspaper accounts of the campaign they are
studying. Have them discuss the perspective of the news reporter.
4. Students write a first person account from the viewpoint of one of the
resisters during the campaign.
5. Students could research and write a report about one of the people who
was pivotal in creating change during a campaign. Students could also
make a presentation using an online tool.
6. Read first person accounts from Ellen Levine’s book Freedom’s Children.

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 EMPATHY MAP (write words, phrases, symbols, drawings)
SAY: What quotes/defining words were the DO: What actions/behaviors did you notice?
subjects saying?

THINK: What do the words you heard FEEL: What emotions were your subjects
people say tell you about his/her beliefs? feeling? (Make inferences)
(Make inferences)

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 MONTGOMERY CAMPAIGN
December 5, 1955-December 20, 1956

Important background information:

1. Mrs. Parks stated that she was tired after working, but that is
not why she chose to remain seated when the bus driver
threatened to have her arrested. She was tired of being treated
so poorly and decided that this was the day she would make a
stand for justice. She had been preparing for this day.
2. The boycott was only for Montgomery city buses. Black people
were not allowed to choose their own seats on a bus. The
segregation laws (known as Jim Crow laws) stated they had to
sit in the back, or behind the Whites Only sign, which the bus
driver attached to a seat somewhere in the middle of the bus.
The bus driver could move the sign towards the back of the
bus, depending on how many white people were on the bus. He
could also demand that black people get out of their seats when
more white people boarded the bus.
3. Black people had to pay their fare in the front of the bus, get off,
and then reenter the bus through the rear door. Often the bus
driver would accept the fare, and then drive away before a
black person was able to board the bus from the rear door.
4. Once word got around Montgomery that Mrs. Parks had been
arrested (she was well known in the black community), Jo Ann
Robinson, a college professor, stenciled and printed tens of
thousands of flyers (see a copy of the flyer on page 36 of this
manual) to let the black citizens know that there was going to
be a boycott of the buses. Ms. Robinson and her team had
been planning for a boycott for several years before Mrs. Parks’
arrest.
5. The boycott was only planned for 1 day. Because almost 100%
of the black passengers stayed off the buses for that one day,
Dr. King asked at a mass meeting if the boycott should
continue. The black citizens said, “Yes!”

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 MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT LEAFLET

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 Colvin case that a Negro
woman 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.

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 MRS. ROSA PARKS and the MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT

Information from She Would Not Be Moved: The Story of Rosa Parks and
the Montgomery Bus Boycott, by Herbert Kohl
Adapted by Robin Wildman

It was 1955. Everyone in the black community in Montgomery, Alabama knew

Rosa Parks. She was a community leader, and people admired her courage. All
throughout her life she had opposed prejudice, even if it got her into trouble with white
people.
In those days Alabama was legally segregated. That means that black people were
prevented by state law from using the same swimming pools, schools, and other public
facilities as whites. There were also separate entrances, toilets, and drinking fountains
for blacks and whites in places such as bus and train stations. Hotels, restaurants, movie
theaters, and sports events were also segregated. If a black person violated any of these
laws, that person might be arrested by police or physically attacked by whites.
The facilities black people were allowed to use were not only separate from the
ones whites used, but they were also inferior. The reason for this was racism, the belief
that white people were superior to blacks and that therefore, whites deserved better
facilities.
In 1955 public buses were divided into sections. The section at the front was
supposed to be “for whites only.” Anywhere from five to ten rows back, the section for
black people began. That part of the bus was called the “Colored” section. Often there was
also a “neutral” section, usually in the middle of the bus. The bus driver decided how
many neutral rows he would need. A black person could sit in the neutral section, yet if a
white person entered the bus, the driver could make the black passenger move. Never
would the races mix in the neutral section.
Whenever it was crowded on city buses, black people were forced to give up seats
in the “Colored” section to whites, and move to the back of the bus. For example, an
elderly black woman would have to give up her seat to a white teenage male. If she
refused she could be arrested for breaking the segregation laws. Additionally, black
passengers paid their bus fare in the front of the bus and then had to leave the bus and
walk to the back door. It was only in this door that they were allowed to board the bus.
Often, the bus driver would pull away, leaving the passenger on the sidewalk and
keeping the fare that was just paid.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks took the bus on her way home from work as
usual. She sat down in the front row of the “Colored” section, with three other black
people. When one white man boarded the bus, the driver, James Blake, demanded that
she and the three other black people in her row give up their seats in the neutral section

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and move to the back of the bus. This was not the first time this had happened to Rosa
Parks. Twelve years earlier, she had refused to move, and the same driver, James Blake,
threatened to hit her and then made her leave the bus. Mrs. Parks despised segregation,
and along with many other black people, she refused to obey many of its unfair laws. On
this day, Mrs. Parks refused to do what the bus driver demanded. The other three people
got up and moved to the back of the bus, but Mrs. Parks remained where she was.
The bus driver commanded her once more to go to the back of the bus and Mrs.
Parks stayed in her seat, looked straight ahead and did not move an inch. It was a hot
day, and the driver was angry.
He asked Mrs. Parks, “Are you going to give me that seat?”
Mrs. Parks replied, “No.”
The driver said, “If you don’t stand up, I’m going to call the police and have you
arrested.”
Mrs. Parks said, “You may do that.” James Blake made the call and a policeman
arrested Mrs. Parks and took her to jail.
Mrs. Parks was not the first black person to be arrested in Montgomery for
refusing to move to the back of the bus. Prior to Mrs. Parks’ arrest at least three other
people were arrested for the same reason. In fact, black leaders in Montgomery had
already been making plans to overcome segregation. One nonviolent method to do this
was to have every black person boycott the buses. A bus boycott would mean that all black
people would refuse to ride the buses until the segregation laws on buses were changed.
Since most of the bus riders in the city were black, the bus company would become
bankrupt if they refused to let all people ride the buses as equals.
From 1949 until the day Mrs. Parks was arrested, the Women’s Political Council
(WPC) of Montgomery had been planning a bus boycott. They were waiting for the right
time. December 1, 1955 was the right time.
Mrs. Parks was the first black leader who was arrested. She was the secretary of
the city’s NAACP chapter (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)
and was well respected in the black community. The day she was arrested Jo Ann
Robinson, a member of the Women’s Political Council, went to the college where she
worked and printed 35,000 flyers announcing a one-day bus boycott to begin on Monday,
December 5, 1955. Black leaders met at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. They knew
that Mrs. Parks had the courage to deal with the pressure of defying segregation and
would not give in, even if her life was threatened.
Twenty-six year old Martin Luther King, Jr. a new minister in Montgomery, was
asked to lead the bus boycott. He became president of the Montgomery Improvement
Association (MIA). On the first morning of the boycott, the buses were nearly empty of
all black riders. That night, Dr. King asked the members of the black community if they
wanted to continue the boycott and they unanimously said YES! He had tried to organize
negotiation meetings with the bus companies so that they could hear the request of the

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MIA for 1) first-come, first-serve seating, with whites seated front to back and blacks
seated back to front, without anyone having to give up seats, 2) more polite bus drivers
and 3) more black drivers for the routes that drove through the black neighborhoods. The
requests were denied.
The Montgomery bus boycott lasted 381 days. For over a year, the black people of
Montgomery, Alabama stayed off the buses. Some walked to work and school, others
rode bicycles or shared car rides. Some people had to walk as far as 5 or 6 miles each way,
in rain and snow, but they did so knowing that their collective strength could help them
defeat segregation on the buses in Montgomery. Finally, on December 20, 1956 the
Supreme Court decision that ruled that Montgomery bus segregation was
unconstitutional was delivered to the people in Montgomery. This was the beginning of
the struggle to end all segregation.
A great deal of courage was shown by Rosa Parks and the black community of
Montgomery, Alabama. Through perseverance, determination, and nonviolent direct
action, they were able to achieve their goal.

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 FREEDOM RIDES CAMPAIGN
May-September 1961

1. Students can view the PBS movie “Freedom Riders” and discuss.
2. Read newspaper accounts of the Freedom Rides from 1961, and present-day
accounts of the Freedom Rides anniversary celebrations. Discuss changes in
public opinion, past and present, about the Freedom Rides.
3. Read first person accounts from Freedom’s Children, by Ellen Levine, pages
85-92 and discuss.

BIRMINGHAM CAMPAIGN
April-May 1963

1. Students can view the Teaching Tolerance movie “The Children’s March” and
discuss.
2. Read first person accounts from Freedom’s Children, by Ellen Levine, pages
93-110 and discuss.
3. Study the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, September 15, 1963
that killed 4 children. Have students read newspaper accounts of the 1977, 2001
and 2002 trials of the perpetrators. Show the movie “Four Little Girls”.

SELMA CAMPAIGN
May, 1965

1. Find Selma and Montgomery on a map. Use the distance scale to measure the
distance that the marchers walked to protest for voting rights.
2. Students can view the video “Selma, Lord Selma” and discuss.
3. Students can research some of the key figures in this campaign and present
information to the class.
4. Read the first person account from eight year old Sheyann Webb, the main
character in “Selma, Lord Selma”. Freedom’s Children, by Ellen Levine, pages
149-159. Discuss.
5. High school students can view the movie “Selma” and discuss.

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