One of the most agonizing moments for leaders and organizers is the time between when a call for action goes out and the time when the action begins. Anyone can issue a “call to action”. But will people respond? That’s the question. It’s one of the rarely mentioned burdens of democratic leadership—the responsibility of calling for action knowing that your followers may not respond.
Before leaving town on Friday Dec. 2, E. D. Nixon had met with Joe Azbell, a Montgomery Advertiser reporter. That meeting resulted in a front page story on Sunday that included a copy of Jo Ann Robinson’s flyer. But, as Rosa Parks writes, “no one could be sure if the protest would be successful. Just because they read a leaflet or heard about it in church, it didn’t mean that people would stay away from the buses.”
But they did. Monday morning the buses were virtually empty. “I think everybody was quite amazed at that demonstration of people staying off the buses (writes Mrs. Parks). As Mr. Nixon said, ‘We surprised ourselves.’ Never before had black people demonstrated so clearly how much those city buses depended on their business. More important, never before had the black community of Montgomery united in protest against segregation on the buses.”
This, on the other hand, is one of the great joys of democratic leadership—the moment when your followers not only respond, but respond so fully that new possibilities open up ahead of you.
Rosa Parks didn’t have much time to think about that on Monday morning. she had to get to the courthouse for her trial. “I did not spend a lot of time planning what to wear, but I remember very clearly that I wore a straight, long-sleeved black dress with a white collar and cuffs, a small black velvet hat with pearls across the top, and a charcoal-gray coat. I carried a black purse and wore white gloves. I was not especially nervous. I knew what I had to do.”
In the large crowd that had gathered at the courthouse were many members of the NAACP Youth Council that Mrs. Parks had supervised and mentored over the years. One girl, Mary Frances, said, “Oh, she’s so sweet. They’ve messed with the wrong one now.”
After a short trial, Mrs. Parks was found guilty, given a suspended sentence, a $10.00 fine, plus $4.00 in court costs. E. D. Nixon, attorneys Fred Gray and Charles Langford and the Montgomery NAACP had their test case. Mrs. Parks reports that while the crowd was angry at her conviction, “there was no organized protest”.
Mary Frances was right. Rosa Parks was “the wrong one” to mess with. Montgomery segregationists could not have faced an opponent more likely to make them look bad—a respectable, middle-aged hard-working church-going woman known and respected by all factions of Montgomery’s Negro community (and by the small faction of white Montgomerians opposed to segregation).
