Alabama v. King: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Criminal Trial That Launched the Civil Rights Movement

    In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, a Black American defendant, obviously innocent, kills his own defense with five words: I felt sorry for her. That’s all it takes for him to make the all-White jury hate him, he just has to act superior to a White person and he’s crossing the line. All it takes is for him to behave as though he’s better off than a White woman, and he’s seen as “uppity,” and racist Whites need no greater excuse to convict him (or worse) than him being uppity. In the Deep South of old, a Black man could risk his life just by opening his mouth. But that’s where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. crossed the line, and once he crossed that line, the USA wasn’t going back.

    Fred Gray was one of the few Black lawyers in 1950’s Alabama and he was part of Dr. King’s defense. One thing I learned from this book, not mentioned in history class, is that the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956 was not the first of its kind. There was an earlier bus boycott in New Orleans, which resulted in changing of the stops along the route. Another boycott in Tuskegee resulted in a lawsuit: the attorney general sued to force Black Americans to buy from White-owned stores! The judge said no, Black citizens had the right to trade – or not – with whomever they wanted. In this case, Gray describes the judge as courageous, but that raises questions. Why would a judge be courageous for ruling with his conscience? Why would it be courageous for a judge to rule based on commerce clauses? The dangers of taking a Black man’s side are a major part of this story.

    It seems (at least according to this book) that Southern racists had a need for segregation, and a need to keep Black Americans as second-class citizens, and that need was power. Having someone beneath you in status can make you feel very powerful. Even the poorest White persons could feel good knowing that a Black family had to defer to them. A poor White girl, starving and clothes rags, could feel like a queen when a Black man (regardless of age) had to step aside for her and address her as “miss.”

    Calling Dr. King’s bus boycott “illegal” was really a way of saying, “How dare he speak!” In a way it was like Olver Twist asking for more slop: by voicing dissatisfaction, Oliver was denying the warden’s sense of benevolence. The author quotes White leaders who described the Black southern living standard as “equal to our own,” and given how Black school were crumbling, and few Black Americans could get loans from banks, such a view seems highly distorted. Was the Southern racist attitude a deliberate construct, or were Southern Whites deluding themselves? The authors show how the South was becoming increasingly isolated, thanks to the Jim Crow policies. For example, when insurance companies cancelled the policies for cars in the boycott carpool, Lloyd’s of London stepped in to insure the cars. These foreign banks were deliberately interfering with the Southern racist efforts, and it showed them that the world was offering no recognition of segregation.

   Some historians believe that the 1960’s, with all the anti-authority rhetoric and rebellion, began with the Civil Rights movement. Aside from industrial strikes, there had never been a mass of people disobeying authority, and certainly not to the extent that they’d put themselves in danger. But the trial of Dr. King, for what the city of Montgomery called an “illegal” boycott, had to have been a major catalyst. When Dr. King was not sent to prison, and released to continue his effort, it sent a message to the South that Jim Crow could be weakened.

Without Jim Crow, the South would have to reconsider the norms and mores.