Maksim's On-Line Museum

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  • Home
  • North America
    • U.S. Capitol Flag
    • Coal Mine Scrip
    • Woodstock Ticket
    • Cable Car Cable
    • Pitch Pine Torch
    • Alcatraz Concrete
    • Ringling Bros. Staff Pin
    • Montgomery Bus Token
    • WTC Ticket
    • KKK Membership Card
    • Archaic Arrowhead
    • Prohibition Prescription
    • Smokey Bear Pinbacks
    • Gold Rush Nuggets
    • Edison Disc Record
    • Hoover Dam Cable
    • Jack Dempsey
    • Cal Ripken, Jr.
    • Bre Pettis
    • Steve Wozniak
    • Robert Ballard
    • Glenn Miller
    • El Cazador Shipwreck Coin
    • Panama Canal Matches
  • Political
    • Iranian Hostage Crisis
    • Watergate Scandal
    • White House Easter Egg
    • Eisenhower Rally Ticket
    • CCC Scrip Tickets
    • Condoleezza Rice
    • Gail Halvorsen
    • Berlin Wall
  • Military
    • Stalag POW ID Tag
    • Disney WWII Insignia
    • D-Day Barbed Wire
    • OPA Ration Tokens
    • WWII Polish Home Army Badge
    • Ships for Victory Pin
    • Crimean War Button
    • Korean War Safe Conduct Pass
    • USO Record Home
    • Vietnam War Mess Token
    • Kamikaze Recognition Slide
    • Kilroy Was Here
    • WWII Monopoly Pieces
    • Red Cross Thimble
    • Pearl Harbor Tool Tag
    • U-boat Badge
    • Red Ball Express Patch
    • Allied Military Currency
    • William McRaven
    • Fred Sutherland
    • Woody Williams
    • Harry Ettlinger
    • Richard Cole
    • Charles McGee
    • George Sakato
    • Chester Nez
    • Don Walsh
    • Joe Kittinger
    • Trinitite
    • Revolutionary War Cannonball
    • Antietam Bullets
  • Aeronautics and space
    • Chuck Yeager
    • Catherine Coleman
    • Soyuz Heat Shield
    • Crawlerway Rock
    • Shuttle Challenger AFRSI
    • Bernice Haydu
    • Edgar Mitchell
  • Automotive
    • Model T Radiator Cap
  • African
    • Anti-Apartheid Pin
    • Maersk Alabama Hijacking
    • Okpoho Manilla
  • Natural
    • Organ Cave
    • Woolly Mammoth Hair
    • Shiva Lingam Stone
    • Mount St. Helens Ash
    • Mosasaurus Tooth
    • Knightia Fish Fossil
    • Megalodon Shark Tooth
  • European
    • Viking Fibula Brooch
    • Olympic Clay Pigeon
    • Chernobyl Liquidator Badge
    • Titanic Coal
  • Asia
    • Great Wall Of China
    • Sikhote-Alin Meteorite
    • Petrified Wood
    • Commemorative Coins
    • Greenbrier Bunker Key
    • World Stamps
    • Russia
  • Feedback

MONTGOMERY CITY LINES BUS TOKEN

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman who worked as a seamstress in a department store in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus she was riding home from work.

She was arrested as a result of her refusal to comply with the orders of the bus driver.  Her arrest and subsequent conviction of violating a city ordinance spurred some of the most significant events during the Civil Rights Movement.

In response to Rosa Parks’ arrest, the African-American community formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and elected Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to lead the organization.  The MIA helped organized a boycott of the city bus system, encouraging African-Americans to avoid riding buses, and instead either carpool, ride in cabs operated by African-Americans, or else walk to work or stay home.

The boycott was extremely successful, and continued for several months, causing public buses to sit idle or run at a significant loss of revenue, since the buses were largely empty during their runs.  The transit company was crippled financially.

The African-American community also took legal action, filing suit in the U.S. District Court.  In June 1956, the court declared that racial segregation laws (also known as “Jim Crow laws”) unconstitutional.  As a result of the court ruling, and the financial losses they were suffering as a result of the boycott, the City of Montgomery had no option but to stop enforcement of racial segregation on public buses.

The item in my collection is a bus token from the Montgomery City Lines transit company. ​
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