Alabama. Attorney General's Office. Montgomery Bus Boycott trial transcript, 1956.
Title:
Montgomery Bus Boycott trial transcript, 1956.
On 1955 Dec. 1 Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., municipal bus to a white person. As a result the black citizens of Montgomery chose to boycott the city's bus system in hope that they could force the bus company and the city to adopt changes to the segregated seating policies. Many of the more vocal blacks banded together to form the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), electing the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. president. The boycott continued into 1956 Feb., when negotiations between the MIA and the city commissioners and bus company officials stagnated. On Feb. 21 eighty-nine blacks including King were indicted for the misdemeanor of conspiring to boycott. The Alabama anti-boycott law was passed in 1921 in response to the violent strike of Birmingham coal miners. Martin L. King was brought to trail in Mar. and although he was convicted Judge Eugene W. Carter refused to sentence him to prison on the grounds that King had worked to avoid violence. This series consists of the State Attorney General's copy of the transcript of the Circuit Court trial that occurred on 1956 Mar. 19. In addition to King, Roy Bennett, E.N. French, and E.D. Dixon were named as defendants. Attorneys for the defense were Fred D. Gray, Charles D. Langford, Orzell Billingsley, Jr., Peter A. Hall, and Arthur D. Shores. Maury D. Smith, Robert B. Stewart, and William F. Thetford served as prosecuting attorneys. Witnesses included: J.H. Bagley, Willie Chisholm, Erna Dungee, U.J. Fields, R.S. Graetz, Beatrice Jackson, Rufus Lewis, Joe Foster, D.S. Johnson, C.E. Moseley, Hezekiah Nunn, J.B. Sadler, C.H. Williams, Joseph Alford, Joe Alford, Joe Azbell, Mary Banks, A.E. Beasley, M.O. Beasley, C.A. Bedsole, Leola Bell, Henrietta Brinson, Sadie Brooks, Stella Brooks, Henry A. Burks, Arretta Burney, Willie Carter, C.N. Courtney, Irene Dorsey, Willie Elmore, J.B. Gardner, Odelliah Garnier, William A. Gayle, Georgia Gilmore, Thelma Glass, Mary Harris, George Henderson, Lula Mae Hopper, Dorothy Johnson, Geneva Johnson, K.Y. Jones, William Jones, Richard Jordan, Bessie Logan, O.O. Martin, W.H. Mills, Gladys Moore, S.E. Moseley, Rosa Lee Murray, John Oliver, Louise Osborne, Janie Page, Henry A. Parker, R.A. Park, Stuart W. Patton, Della Perkins, Eva Perkins, O.T. Rainwater, Inez Ricks, Frances Rutledge, Jack Shows, R.T. Smiley, Ernest Smith, Martha K. Walker, D.W. Williams, Odessa Williams, and A.W. Wilson. Individuals mentioned during the course of the trial include: Ralph D. Abernathy, Claudette Colvin, Jack Crenshaw, Governor James E. (Big Jim) Folsom, Walter Knabe, Rosa Parks, and JoAnn Robinson.
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Original 1 item (1 oversized box)Copy on one microfilm reel.
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