"The Montgomery Bus Boycott," by Jo Ann Robinson is a compelling autobiography about how fifty thousand black citizens of Montgomery, Alabama said no more to segregation, inhuman treatment, violence and the humiliation that they received not only from the Bus Company, but from white citizens and high ranking political figures as well. Working diligently with great, influential black leaders, Robinson and the group she led help organized a boycott that started a civil rights movement that would last a decade. .
Jo Ann Robinson was a well educated professor at Alabama State College where she taught English from 1949 until she resigned, because of increasing political pressure by a special state committee, in 1960. Feeling as though it was time to move on Robinson went to teach in four other states (Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, and California). Her teaching career ended in 1976 giving her a total of thirty-four years as an educator. In addition to being a profound professor she also contributed a substantial amount of her time to support the efforts of the Montgomery bus boycott. For example, she was president of the Women's Political Counsel (WPC) college chapter, an organization of black women founded by Dr. Mary Fair Burks in 1946; she provided funds to produce 52,500 notices to inform the black community of the boycott, and she worked closely beside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a member of The Montgomery Improvement Association, in which she served on the MIA Executive Board, the Mayor's Committee, and was the editor for the MIA Newsletter. As Dr. King would later write, "Apparently indefatigable, she, perhaps more than any other person, was active on every level of the protest."[ Stride Toward Freedom, p.78].
Many believe that the arrest of Rosa Parks is what started the Montgomery bus boycott and the movement for civil rights, however, contrary to popular belief, it was not. The truth of the matter is that the black communities of Montgomery were tired of segregation, cruelty, and the many acts of violence toward them.
