Once Rosa Parks was arrested, things happened fast that Thursday evening. Her neighbor, Bertha Butler, had seen Parks being arrested, and called Mrs. E. D. Nixon, who notified her husband. Nixon called the jail, but couldn’t get any information. He then called, but could not reach, attorney Fred Gray. Nixon then called attorney Clifford Durr (whose wife Virginia had arranged the scholarship that allowed Rosa Parks to attend the Highlander Center), and the two of them, along with Mrs. Durr went to the jail and got Mrs. Parks released. Because Nixon was a Pullman porter and was heading out of town for work, he requested and received a court date of Monday, December 5 for Mrs. Parks.
When Rosa Parks was finally allowed a phone call, she called home and spoke with her husband. A friend then drove Raymond Parks to the jail (the Parks’ didn’t own a car), where she was being released, and then all of them went back to the Parks’ house, arriving around 9:30 pm, where they were greeted by Mrs. Parks’ mother, and by Bertha Butler.
After some discussion (Raymond Parks initially opposed the idea), Mrs. Parks agreed to serve as a test case for challenging the Montgomery bus system.
By now, Fred Gray had heard what had happened. Both he and E. D. Nixon spoke by phone that night with Jo Ann Robinson. Professor Robinson called the other key leaders of the Women’s Political Council and they decided to call a one-day bus boycott for Monday, December 5, the day of Mrs. Parks’ court appearance.
Robinson and another professor met at Alabama State at midnight, drafted a half-page flyer, ran off 35,000 mimeographed copies, then swore each other to silence. If word got out they had used state property to call the boycott, they would lose their jobs immediately.
Friday morning Robinson and some of her students drove around distributing the handbills to all the black elementary and high schools—so that students would take them home to their families. (Notice that because the schools were completely segregated—no white students, teachers, aides or janitors on campus—this was, in effect, a “secure” communication system.)
Just as Robinson’s May 21, 1954 letter to the mayor (advising him that over 25 organizations had already held discussions about a possible bus boycott) is one of the great American public letters of the 20th century, so too is her flyer initiating what became the Montgomery Bus Boycott one of the most significant political handbills of the 20th century. Here it is in its entirety:
This is for Monday, December 5, 1955.
Another Negro woman has been arrested and thrown into jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus and give it to a white person.
It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing. This has to be stopped.
Negroes have rights, too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negroes, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother.
This woman’s case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don’t ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday.
You can afford to stay out of school for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don’t ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off all buses on Monday.
