In 1962, Mr Hackett's late wife Ena applied to work as a bus conductor. Mr Hackett recalls walking down the street and seeing a young man in tears outside the bus station. He and his wife, Jeannie, faced harassment, threats and bombings as a result. Shocking Moments in 20th Century Black History, M.S.Ed, Secondary Education, St. John's University, M.F.A., Creative Writing, City College of New York. Parks asked one of them, "Why do you all push us around?" News correspondent He was 92. Robert Graetz, the only white minister to support the Montgomery bus boycott and who became the target of scorn and bombings for doing so, died Sunday. But in 2015, on the sixtieth anniversary of the bus boycott, Graetz was one of the speakers on a panel organized by NPR and member station WVAS. "Rosa Parks: My Story." The MIA was developed specifically to lead ongoing boycott efforts. Tafeni English, the director of the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center called Graetz a “remarkable civil rights and social justice leader.”. In Montgomery, whites were allowed to board the bus through the front doors. In an interview in 1992, Parks stated that she did not intend to be disorderly or to get arrested. In addition to the segregated seating on Montgomery city buses, African-Americans were often made to pay their bus fare at the front of the bus and then get off the bus and re-enter through the back door. The city both Ms Dettering and Mr Hackett have called home has stayed the same, but the world around them has massively changed. ... Black History in the United States: A Timeline. By using ThoughtCo, you accept our, Browder v. Gayle: Court Case, Arguments, Impact, Biography of Rosa Parks, Civil Rights Pioneer, Civil Rights Movement Timeline From 1951 to 1959, Women in Black History Timeline: 1950-1959, Shocking Moments in 20th Century Black History, Top 2005 Events Likely to Make It Into American History Textbooks, Congress of Racial Equality: History and Impact on Civil Rights, A Profile of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Ralph Abernathy: Advisor and Confidante to Martin Luther King Jr. Her total fines and court costs were $14. Martin Luther King Jr. African-American History from 1950 to 1959, B.A., History, University of California at Davis. "Well, he did not start the trouble. The demonstrations, which were co-led by Dr Paul Stephenson, were inspired by the likes of Martin Luther King Jr and the actions of Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus. Robert Graetz. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. The 35,000 flyers announcing the bus boycott were completely distributed by the day of Parks’ trial and all blacks were asked to remain out of any form of bus transportation, including to and from school for the day. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress and secretary of the local NAACP, refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. A unanimous agreement was made that black people would boycott the buses until fair seating was arranged, changes were made to the way blacks were treated on the bus, and some black drivers were hired. The parsonage where the Graetzes lived was twice targeted by bombs, once when they were away and again in 1957, not long after the boycott ended, in a wave of attacks on civil rights leaders and churches. Dixon’s home is also bombed. However, the MIA will not end the boycott until the desegregation of buses was officially enacted. Ralph D. Abernathy, left, talk outside the witness room during a bombing trial in Montgomery, Ala. Graetz, the only white minister to support the Montgomery Bus Boycott, died Sunday, Sept. 20, 2020. In addition to separate drinking fountains, bathrooms, and schools for African-Americans and whites, there were separate rules regarding seating on city buses. Although African-Americans in Montgomery lived with segregation daily, these unfair policies on city buses were especially upsetting. So if a white person boarded, there were no free seats, an entire row of African-American passengers would have to stand so that the white passenger could sit. I said, 'Why are you crying? Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. talk outside the witness room during a bombing trial in Montgomery, Ala. Abernathy's church and home were bombed as well as the home of Graetz, who has an all-Black congregation. An ad in The Montgomery Advertiser also helped to spread the word about the boycott. It was a surreal moment for Barbara Dettering, 81, who also attended the protests 57 years ago. On December 13, the MIA creates a carpooling system for African-American residents participating in the boycott. ← Many of them wondered why Parks didn't just get up like the others had done. However, the white response continued to be violent and was the main reason that the government was finally forced to confront and deal with the segregation issues in the South. A Biography of the Rev. On 28 August 1963, Martin Luther King Jr stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his iconic "I have a dream" speech. Her refusal and arrest led to an organized boycott of the line by its African-American riders that lasted a year and ultimately led to its desegregation. ", After waiting for a little while on the bus, two policemen came to arrest her. “The privilege of standing up for righteousness and justice and love is greater than any other reward we might have received,” Graetz wrote. It took such a cruel killing to bring the world, not just America or England, but the world to its knees and acknowledge racism. Parks was taken to City Hall where she was fingerprinted and photographed and then placed in a cell with two other women. The following day, a group of white men assaulted an African-American teenager exiting a bus. Femi Lewis is a writer and educator who specializes in African-American history topics, including slavery, abolitionism, and the Harlem Renaissance. At the next stop, the Empire Theater, a group of whites boarded the bus. Nixon, a friend of Parks as well as the president of the local chapter of the NAACP, asked Rosa Parks if she would be the plaintiff in a lawsuit against the bus company. Graetz immediately began organizing car pools to assist with their transportation needs and spent three hours each morning driving people to work in his own car. And that made it for us, we felt vindicated to a certain point, and the two things coincide on the same day. On March 2, Claudette Colvin, a fifteen-year-old girl from Montgomery, is arrested for refusing to allow a white passenger to sit in her seat. A few months after Graetz and his wife arrived in Montgomery, Rosa Parks and other local leaders, including King, launched a bus boycott to protest segregated seating in city buses. Graetz was the minister of the majority-Black Trinity Lutheran Evangelical Church in Montgomery. "It was just not right that we were not allowed to work on the buses. He was 92. The Graetzes were at home with their children at the time, including a nine-day-old baby at the time. At the time, no laws were in place and employers could not be prosecuted for discriminating on racist grounds. Graetz and his wife left Montgomery in 1958 and continued their social justice work in locations around the country. The 1950s and 1960s saw an influx of young West Indian men and women arriving into Britain - many of them settled in the St Paul's area of Bristol. "He had to promise he would not start trouble," Jeannie Graetz recalled in a 2019 interview with NPR. Despite the hostile looks from the bus driver and the other passengers, Rosa Parks refused to get up. One bomb blew out the windows of the home. In his book, “A White Preacher’s Message on Race and Reconciliation,” Graetz described how during those years of danger he played a game with his children in which he encouraged them to duck behind the sofa if they were told to hide because of a strange noise outside. The sustained campaign, which he led with other activists, commanded national attention, with students from Bristol University joining the peaceful protests.