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The ride to equality started 60 years ago (in Tallahasee, Florida)
The ride to equality started 60 years ago
Gerald Ensley, Democrat correspondent 11:43 p.m. EDT May 21, 2016
Sixty years later, it seems impossible to believe there was a time when blacks and whites were not allowed to sit together on Tallahassee city buses. It seems impossible to believe blacks were not allowed to sit in the front seats of a bus. Those seats were reserved for white people.
But in 1956, it was the law in Tallahassee, then still a small city of strict racial separation. The population was 38,000 — one-third black and confined to menial jobs or professional positions within the black community. Blacks could not eat in most white-owned restaurants. They couldn't shop at most white-owned stores; public water fountains were labeled for “whites only” and “colored only.”
On May 26, 1956, two Florida A&M students changed the course of history. Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Patterson boarded a Tallahassee city bus on South Adams Street and plopped down on a front bench beside a white woman.
The bus driver ordered them to move to the back of the bus. When the two students refused, the driver drove to a nearby gas station and called the police. Jakes and Patterson were arrested and charged with placing themselves in a position to “incite a riot.”
More: http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2016/05/20/bus-boycott-60-years-later/84546580/
Gerald Ensley, Democrat correspondent 11:43 p.m. EDT May 21, 2016
Sixty years later, it seems impossible to believe there was a time when blacks and whites were not allowed to sit together on Tallahassee city buses. It seems impossible to believe blacks were not allowed to sit in the front seats of a bus. Those seats were reserved for white people.
But in 1956, it was the law in Tallahassee, then still a small city of strict racial separation. The population was 38,000 — one-third black and confined to menial jobs or professional positions within the black community. Blacks could not eat in most white-owned restaurants. They couldn't shop at most white-owned stores; public water fountains were labeled for “whites only” and “colored only.”
On May 26, 1956, two Florida A&M students changed the course of history. Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Patterson boarded a Tallahassee city bus on South Adams Street and plopped down on a front bench beside a white woman.
The bus driver ordered them to move to the back of the bus. When the two students refused, the driver drove to a nearby gas station and called the police. Jakes and Patterson were arrested and charged with placing themselves in a position to “incite a riot.”
More: http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2016/05/20/bus-boycott-60-years-later/84546580/
On Thursday, Tallahassee, Florida, will remember the bus boycott that helped change things here. The article covers the original bus boycott - with pictures from that period - and the commemoration that will held on Thursday.
