Tallahassee bus boycott
| Tallahassee bus boycott | |||
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| Part of the Civil Rights Movement | |||
| Date | May 28, 1956 – December 22, 1956 | ||
| Location | Tallahassee, Florida | ||
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IIC member
NAACP member
The Tallahassee Bus Boycott was a citywide boycott in Tallahassee, Florida that sought to end racial segregation in the employment and seating arrangements of city buses. On May 26, 1956, Wilhemina Jakes and Carrie Patterson, two Florida A&M University students, were arrested by the Tallahassee Police Department for behavior that would "incite a riot". Robert Saunders, representing the NAACP, and Rev. C. K. Steele began talks with city authorities while the local African-American community started boycotting the city's buses. The Inter-Civic Council ended the boycott on December 22, 1956. On January 7, 1957, the City Commission repealed the bus-franchise segregation clause because of the United State Supreme Court ruling Browder v. Gayle (1956).
Jakes and Patterson boarded a city bus and sat in the only open seats, which were next to a White woman. The driver declared that the two women could not sit where they were sitting, and Jakes agreed to get off the bus, so long as she received her bus fare in return. The driver would not return Jakes' bus fare and drove to a service station, where he then called the police, who subsequently arrested the women. Later that day, the students were bailed out by the Dean of Students.
The day after the incident, a cross was burned in front of the women’s residence. News of the cross-burning quickly spread throughout the campus, and Student Government Association officers, led by Brodes Hartley, called for a meeting of the student body. The incidents (i.e., cross-burning and arrest) were discussed in the meeting, and student leaders called for the withdrawal of student support of the bus company and for students to seek participation in the boycott throughout the community. Reverend Steele, a member of the Tallahassee Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance (IMA) and leader in the NAACP, organized a mass meeting that night. In this meeting, the Inter-Civic Council (ICC) was born from the joining of the NAACP, IMA, and Tallahassee Civic League. The ICC was formed in response to community fear that a NAACP-led protest would be met with state repression. The ICC’s leaders held weekly meetings and the Council was highly active in Civil Rights-related activism. The NAACP became involved well after the boycott had been started, when leaders sent a lawyer to defend drivers of boycotters (carpool drivers) who were arrested for driving unlicensed “for hire” vehicles.
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