Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. reflects on the events of 1955-1956 surrounding the Montgomery Bus Boycott and his part in it.

King begins with how he came to Montgomery as a minister and what the city was like, mentioning Claudette Colvin's arrest and that there were some talks but that nothing came of them. The groundwork laid, we then get his account of Rosa Parks' arrest and the protest itself. He spends a whole chapter discussing the several writers who influenced his thoughts on nonviolent protest, including Henry David Thoreau, Reinhold Neibuhr, and of course Gandhi. We then get the contrast of that method with that of the opposition, who used violence, intimidation, and misinformation to try to get the protest to end. One of the show more most fascinating parts of it, for me, were how organized they were and how different that time was from our own. Yes, I know, I should have expected it - I know there were no smart phones and Internet in 1958. But they did so much with phone calls and newspapers, getting the word out and having mass meetings, keeping their message clear and on point. And their goals, in retrospect, were not really asking for much: "(1) a guarantee of courtesy; (2) a white reserved section at the front of the bus, and a Negro reserved section at the rear, with first-come, first-served obtaining for the unreserved, middle section; (3) special, all-Negro buses during the rush hours" (124). (That third goal shifted to the bus company being willing to hire Black drivers.) Throughout the year of protest, King describes the escalation of violence against him and other leaders, and his own moments of doubt and fear, but most of all his faith and why it was central to him as a Christian to insist on justice for all.

If my history classes touched on Civil Rights (most years we ended soon after World War 2), events of the 1950s and 1960s were sort of smooshed together and you'd think that there was a clean line from the Supreme Court rulings on desegregation to Southern resistance to finally Civil Rights workers, Black and white, resisting and demanding justice in all areas of life. But the reality, as Dr. King shows in his memoir, was much more complicated than that. It was not a quick and steady progress to justice, but long battles where even the people protesting didn't always agree on how to protest or how much to ask for. In 1958, when the book was published close on the heels of the bus boycott, the protesters gained a victory but still didn't expect folks to be so integrated as to share the same bench, let alone intermarry or have equal voting rights. And as I read the final chapter, "Where do we go from here?" I couldn't help but be saddened that there are still so many who would like to see us go right back to the 1950s in the oppression of others and demand for white privilege. Ever more necessary reading that I can't recommend highly enough. show less

December 1955, Montgomery, Alabama. Under full racial segregation, a young Black woman, Rosa Parks, is arrested for having refused to give up her seat to a White person in a bus. We all know the story: if she wasn't the first one to do such a thing, she will be the one triggering a storm that would engulf the USA.

Rosa Parks indeed would, because of her activism, believes, and acquittances, attract the support of the NAACP (of which she was a member) besides that of most pastors from Montgomery, those leaders were already fighting on the front line to improve the lot of the Black communities. By a domino effect, all the organisations, associations, and activist groups in town would therefore follow suit, finding in her case a common show more goal to achieve beyond their petty divisions. They would, in fact, gather to create a new organisation, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), chose, as their leader, a young pastor until then completely unknown -Martin Luther King Jr.- and then decide before to boycott the city buses until their demands were met:

-passengers to be allowed to sit wherever they want, and without Black people to have to give up their place to White people when no seating space remained;
-drivers to be more courteous and polite towards Black people;
-Black people to be employed as drivers, at least on the routes serving Black neighbourhoods.

These were clear demands, then, some of which being in fact already in place in other Southern cities (Nashville, Atlanta, Mobile etc.). Nevertheless, here was a punch into the face of racism, especially given that Montgomery was, historically, considered as the cradle of the South (it's there indeed that, in 1861, Jefferson Davis had proclaimed the birth of the Confederate States, starting thus the Civil War...).

The rest, of course, is more than well-known: after more than a year of police persecutions and brutality, an extreme violence when White supremacists burnt even churches with the full support of the KKK, Martin Luther King Jr and his movement would, by the sheer strength of non-violent means (inspired as he was by both Jesus and Gandhi) the Supreme Court would intervene to declare segregation in buses to be 'unconstitutional'. The blow was without precedent. Montgomery would become a symbol, the source from where would flow the Freedom Rides of 1960-61 (to desegregate buses journeying between states) and launching the Civil Rights era that would define the 1960s.

This book is the story of such a long and hard battle, as told by Martin Luther King Jr himself, without hypocrisy nor egotism, but acknowledging the incredible team work achieved. He, in fact, insists upon a key point: here was not a victory for Black people only, but for human decency above all. Full of hope and optimism, it actually ends by a chapter titled 'Where do we go from here?', and where the pastor clearly shows that, if a step forward had been taken in Montgomery, many more steps remained then to be taken across the whole country. In other words: he already had his eyes set on new campaigning, new challenges! We all know where it all lead him. This is where it all started. Remarkable. show less

This writing is partly a history partly a personal memoir partly a collection of Essays and always visionary. As others have noted it is difficult to write a review of this writing. I think it would take writing a book to describe all my reactions to it.

I grew up in Montgomery. I was 5 when Rosa Parks took her seat in the front of the city bus. While 5 may seem young to remember much about this period. Actually the opposite is true. There was little television we got our first set when I was 5. Yet many figures in this book both black and white were prominent names etched in my memory. Like most suburban white dwellers my mother had no car. My father had his business car. He worked long long hours. Often returning home - he sold and show more serviced refrigeration primarily to mom and pop groceries in Montgomery county and many surrounding counties- late with dinner long grown cold.

So we rode the buses as many other whites. I can remember riding the buses before during and after the bus boycott. Talk discussion rumors of the boycott filled our lives.

Dr. King tells many terrible stories of events that happened to black bus riders of the horrors of retaliation during the boycott and after. There are many terrible things of which he doesn t speak. I wonder if he even knew of some of it or if the retelling was simply too grievous.

What I particularly appreciated about Dr. King s remarks is understanding that many whites with no evil in their hearts were as caught under the net of hate and racism as the blacks. I appreciate his saying so and saying so more than once.

Growing up I knew haters and respecters of black people. And I knew many white who were in between.

I listened to the audio version of the book. Dr. King s words are those of a minister intended to be savored and to touch the heart.

I know that there has been some criticism of this book that Dr. King overlooked the contributions of many particularly of women. My take on this is that this is "Dr. King s" memoir. Aren t we all the center of our own stories? I think anyone knows that a miraculous effort like the Montgomery boycott takes a thousand heroes and heroines. Yet listening to this memoir it is no wonder that Dr. King became the iconic leader of the civil rights movement that he became. show less

King’s account of the history of the Montgomery bus boycott. It’s interesting to hear him test out concepts that would become more famous later from other speeches; the book as a whole is far more accommodating to liberals than, say, Letter from Birmingham Jail, though even at this relatively early stage King was talking about economic justice and also about the fact that he might well be killed. According to King, the protestors were initially willing to accept continued segregation as long as they were treated better and not forced to give up seats if they got there first; it was the resistance to even such a mild improvement that pushed them towards demanding integration. The amount of accommodation to whites King is willing to show more do at this point is fascinating—for example, there are statements about the black community’s need to improve its own standards, familiar even today. By contrast, when it comes to intermarriage, King is indirect but crystal clear: since marriage is a matter of individual choice, no one but the people involved have a right to decide who should get married. King underplays the role of Rosa Parks and other women in the civil rights movement, and there’s a jarring point at the end when he says that wage equality for black and white men is really important to everyone’s family because women should stay at home: paying black men more will allow black women to stay home, and then white women won’t be able to have their kids raised by black women and will also have to stay home. Another reminder that visions of justice are, even among great heroes, often partial. show less

Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, by Martin Luther King (Audible audio book, 9 hours). Published 2015. Narrated by JD Jackson, this inspiring tale of the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, started with Rosa Park’s refusal to give up her seat to a white person, is told in a voice that resonates with at least some of the intonations of Martin Luther King, Jr. The book asserts that Rosa Parks was an innocent in the boycott, unprompted by others and not part of a planned effort to challenge segregation in the city’s bus system. I’ve read elsewhere that her resistance was planned, though this book asserts otherwise. What is known is that a movement developed to force the question of integration, one that was eventually led show more by the charismatic Reverend King, a recent transplant from Atlanta. In popular lore, Ms Parks’ resistance spontaneously caused the city to change its policies, and everyone lived happily thereafter. What actually occurred was a remarkable coalescing of hesitant negroes (and a few whites) into concerted action, a multiple month boycott, legal action against the many people and companies that assisted in transporting negroes to and from work while staying away from busses, arrests, physical intimidation, actual violence, and much more. Dr King and Ralph Abernathy, a now famous colleague, had their houses bombed, and Dr King, among others, was jailed. It took many months, but an appeal of the local court’s decision that segregation was legal made its way to the Supreme Court where it was ruled unconstitutional. The City’s transportation system was eventually integrated, but integration of busses did not immediately portend integration more broadly, nor anything close to equal rights. Sadly, those battles continue to this day. In his telling of this story and the involvement of thousands of others, he reveals his commitment to nonviolence, his own doubts about the efficacy of that approach, his very real fears for his own safety and that of his family, friends, and constituents, and his abiding faith that their movement was one of love and tolerance, and was for the benefit of everyone involved, including white oppressors. This is well worth reading. show less

So good. MLK is as good of an author as he was as a speaker. You feel his passion, his love of God and love for people in this book. A great, detailed story of the Montgomery bus protest. Excellent