Agency Leads to Change
Flyer advertising carpooling services to support the Montgomery bus boycott, Courtesy of The New York Public Library
There is a forthcoming National Geographic's Genius anthology series about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. (MLKI) I am sharing related content from our archives. Today we turn to the agency of MLK and the women who made him a house hold name. The 1955 to 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott served as MLK’s first civil rights movement. During the boycott he maintained solidarity among the often fragmented leadership of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) who organized the boycott. National news broadcast coverage of his oratory skills at evening rallies during the boycott to help maintain the morale of the rank and file members of the MIA introduced MLK to the nation. King played an important role during the boycott and so did the domestic servants who stayed off the buses. Without their decision to walk to work or take the newly established MIA car pool, the boycott would have failed. When a reporter asked one such domestic how she was holding up with so much walking during the boycott which lasted for 13months between 1955 and 1956 she responded, “My feet is tired, but my soul is rested.”
New Series on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
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