12 Incredible Facts about the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Lois Sepahban: Book Review

"Turning Points in U.S. History" (series)
12 Incredible Facts about the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Author: Lois Sepahban
Publisher: Peterson Publishing Company, 2016
Reviewer: Sharon M. Himsl
Ages: 8-12, MG nonfiction
Pages: 32

Montgomery, Alabama’s bus boycott in December 1955 was the onset of the Civil Rights Movement. After passage of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment in 1868  stating that all citizens (born or naturalized), were equal under the law, white southerners in general refused to comply. Laws were passed to segregate the recently freed slaves from full participation in society, banning them from white schools, neighborhoods, restaurants, and more. Eighty-seven years later racial segregation persisted. In 1955, discrimination against blacks in transportation was common, including refusal of service by white taxicab drivers and busing laws that ruled blacks sit in the bus’s rear. Such laws represent the first of twelve facts about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. 

Most know the story of black resident Rosa Parks (fact two), who sat in the white section of a Montgomery bus refusing to give up her seat, an act that resulted in her arrest. Others before her had protested similarly, like fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin, but Rosa’s arrest was the final straw in the ongoing discrimination. As a result, 95% of Montgomery’s black community refused to ride the buses in protest (fact three). Montgomery police attempted to arrest the boy-cotters, but the blacks remained peaceful and stayed out of sight (fact four). Finally, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. voiced his support of Rosa at a rally (fact five), drawing a crowd of 5000 blacks (fact six). 

Meanwhile, Montgomery church volunteers drove the boy-cotters to their jobs, as the bus companies refused to budge (facts seven and eight). King’s arrest soon followed and police began ticketing the volunteer drivers (fact nine). Unfortunately, Ku Klux Klan (KKK) violence erupted next, including the bombing of King’s home (fact ten). Some boy-cotters (115) were then indicted (fact eleven), but in June 1956 the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of blacks on public buses was unconstitutional (fact twelve), ending the boycott. Complete with glossary, photos, and key dates, Sepahban's book is one of many written on the Civil Rights Movement, but the period remains a pivotal time in American history, which needs to be remembered again and again.

Book Review - Voices of the Civil Rights Movement by Lori Mortensen

“We Shall Overcome” (Series)
Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: A Primary Source Exploration of the Struggle for Racial Equality
Author: Lori Mortensen
Publisher: Capstone Press, 2015
Ages 8 to 10, Nonfiction
Pages: 32

The voices of key Civil Rights activists come to life through documented primary sources in Mortensen’s Voices of the Civil Rights Movement. Readers learn the different points of view, and how participants in the movement actually felt. Photographs show the emotions on people’s faces, their actions and reactions, and elsewhere in quoted speech, the words they spoke. 

After slavery was abolished in 1865, “Jim Crow” laws quickly fell into place in the southern states, separating the black and white races. Hate groups and mob activity rose against African-Americans, threatening all who disobeyed. Blacks grew weary of being separate and not equal. In 1955, Rosa Parks of Montgomery, Alabama, said she “was tired of giving in.” Mortensen describes the bus boycott that resulted when Parks went to jail over a bus seat she refused to yield to a white rider. Leaders on both sides of the argument rose. 

Alabama Police Commissioner Clyde Sellers argued that the law had been broken, plain and simple. Black leader Martin Luther King Jr. initiated a nonviolent protest, in which blacks in Montgomery refused to ride on the bus line. The boycott gained national attention and protest spread throughout the south to other areas of concern, such as school segregation. Black leaders Thurgood Marshall and Daisy Bates spoke out, demanding more action, against objections by Governor Orval Faubus and George Wallace, who fought against racial integration. Freedom Riders made the news, like Jim Zwerg, a white Civil Rights worker who was beaten. 

The fight for freedom changed America, Mortensen writes. White prejudice continued to surface and more lives were lost, but southern viewpoints eventually changed. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 and America's first African-American president was elected in 2008. A Glossary and Critical Thinking Using the Common Core section are included to generate classroom discussion. A good primary source for teachers to introduce, as well as for interested parents.