The Tallahassee Bus Boycott - Fifty Years Later
By Charles U. Smith
Significant social change in human society does not occur quickly, easily or without precedent. Many whites in the North, but especially in the southern United States, professed astonishment and disbelief in the 1950s that "their good old Negroes" (now blacks) would unite and rise up against the long-standing segregated and "separate but equal" etiquette that had kept blacks and whites segregated in virtually every aspect of daily life ever since the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision in 1896.
Although many paid little or no attention, NAACP lawsuits had been chipping away at the separate but equal treatment of blacks, especially in higher education, in a series of lawsuits from 1910 through 1949. In 1950, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Sweatt v. Painter Texas law school case that "intangibles" such as prestige, traditions, existing reputation and the like must be considered in determining that a separate school was equal to its white counterpart.
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On May 17, 1954, in the case of Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that "separate facilities" were "inherently unequal" - meaning that racially segregated schools could never be made equal - and thus all public education must be desegregated.
The Brown decision, though applying directly to public education, nevertheless gave inspiration, hope and encouragement to blacks that racial segregation in many other areas of public life in the United States might similarly be determined to be illegal.
On Dec. 1, 1955, Ms. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., thereby igniting the Montgomery Bus Boycott - and the modem Civil Rights Movement. Nearly six months later, in Tallahassee, Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Patterson declined to move to the back of the bus and refused to give up their seats next to a lone white women at the front of the bus unless they were refunded their 10-cent fares - a total of 20 cents.
Refusing to refund their fares, the bus operator instead drove to a nearby service station and called the Tallahassee police. Mss. Jakes and Patterson were arrested and charged with placing themselves in a position to cause a riot. Released on bail to the custody of FAMU the same day, the two women moved to the FAMU campus after a cross was burned on the lawn of their off-campus rooming house.
Thus began the Tallahassee bus protest, initiated by FAMU students but carried on as a boycott mostly by ordinary black citizens, a small number of FAMU faculty and staff and the Inter-Civic Council (ICC), organized to coordinate and support the boycott by the Tallahassee Ministerial Alliance, whose president was Dr. James L. Hudson, chaplain and professor of religion and philosophy at FAMU.
Mss. Jakes and Patterson did not set out to start a direct action civil-rights protest, and one might say that the boycott started over 20 cents.
The Tallahassee Bus Boycott, while never receiving the publicity and national awareness of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, was nevertheless extremely important in the national Civil Rights Movement because it was the very first nonviolent direct action civil-rights protest initiated in the United States by college students. It also showed how:
Black students on black college campuses could participate in bringing about change in race relations and civil rights.
Black citizens who needed to ride the city buses to work and shopping could unite against the opposing white power structure and cause positive change.
Black churches and their pastors, largely immune from direct reprisal by whites, could organize and coordinate a movement and make positive change in Tallahassee.
A governor (LeRoy Collins) born, raised, educated and elected as a racial segregationist could change and become a strong supporter of civil-rights justice and racial desegregation.
FAMU faculty and staff members participating actively and visibly in the Bus Boycott could be reprimanded and investigated by the Florida Senate investigating committee (the Johns Committee) and retain their positions at FAMU.
Some erstwhile prominent black community leaders with the Tallahassee white establishment opposed the bus boycott but were unable to stop it or disrupt the strong unity and determination of ordinary black citizens in Tallahassee.
Car pool drivers, though intimidated and arrested, could/would continue to transport workers to their jobs and other destinations.
Race relations in other areas of life in Tallahassee could be improved and enhanced through direct, nonviolent collective action.
Although no elected or appointed official in Tallahassee city government has ever admitted it, the Tallahassee Bus Boycott was unquestionably successful. The three ICC demands were all achieved:
(1) Seating on a first-come, first-served basis.
(2) Employment of black bus drivers.
(3) Greater courtesy to black riders by bus drivers.
This success was due to the unprecedented unity and determination that ordinary black citizens and those in leadership positions were able to achieve and maintain. The Tallahassee Bus Boycott also stimulated civil-rights activity throughout Florida.
The Tallahassee Bus Boycott established what is now the tradition of social consciousness and student activism at Florida A&M; University expressed in the 1959 rape of a FAMU coed; the lunch counter sit-ins of 1960; the theater demonstrations in 1984 (when more than 500 students were jailed); the mass protest of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968; and most recently the brutal beating by guards and the subsequent death of Martin Lee Anderson at a Florida boot camp.
The social consciousness and direct activism at FAMU was the forerunner to student activism at other historically black colleges and universities such as North Carolina A&T; University at Greensboro, Southern University in Baton Rouge, Tennessee State University in Nashville, Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, and Morehouse and Clark-Atlanta universities in Atlanta, as well as others.
Charles U. Smith is emeritus Distinguished Professor of Sociology and former dean of the School of Graduate Studies, Florida A&M; University. He has written and co-authored a few books including, "The Civil Rights Movement in Florida and the United States" and "Student Unrest on Historically Black Campuses."
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