On this day, 5 December 1955, four days after the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to vacate her seat in the “colored” section of a segregated bus for a white passenger, the Montgomery bus boycott began. A seminal moment in the civil rights movement, not just for racial equality but also as part of Black women’s struggles against sexual violence. Sexual harassment and assault of Black women, predominantly domestic workers, was rife on the city’s buses. In the lead-up to the boycott, dozens of women had lodged complaints about nasty, sexualized insults, inappropriate touching, and physical abuse by drivers.
Pictured: Black workers commuting on foot during the boycott https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1600439320141212/?type=3