I find myself in possession of the December 19th, 1956 letter, signed
THE MONTGOMERY IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION
THE REV. M. L. KING, JR., PRESIDENT
THE REV. W. J. POWELL, SECRETARY
Context, details, and a jpeg of the letter, below the squiggly:
December 19th, 1956.
First, to understand the letter, here is some context:
1952 was the first year on record in which no lynchings were recorded.
May 17th, 1954: Brown v. Board of Education decided.
August 28th, 1955: Emmett Till was lynched.
November 25th, 1955: The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) banned racial segregation on interstate buses, train lines and in waiting rooms. The ruling had no bearing on in-state travel.
December 1st, 1955: Rosa Parks was arrested for sitting in the front of a bus. Bus boycott begins shortly after.
Here is where it starts to get tense in Montgomery:
January 30th, 1956: Dr. King's house in Montgomery was bombed.
February 21st, 1956: 89 leaders of the boycott were indicted for violating a state law forbidding boycotts without "just cause." Dr. King was the only one prosecuted, and was found guilty, "fined $1,000, and given a suspended sentence of one year of hard labor."
August 25th, 1956: Dynamite was thrown through the window of Pastor Robert Graetz's home in Montgomery. Pastor Graetz, a young white minister, was a member of the Montgomery Improvement Association. The Mayor called it an "inside job" and "just a publicity stunt to build up interest of the Negroes in their campaign...."
November 13, 1956: In Browder v. Gayle, The Supreme Court rules that bus segregation was in violation of the 14th amendment.
The court order to end segregation on the bus line would come on Friday, December 21st, 1956. The day before, December 20th, The City of Montgomery passes an ordinance authorizing passengers of color to sit anywhere on the bus. This letter went out on December 19th:
Looking at this almost 60 years later, it is easy to dismiss the abundance of caution expressed in the letter. But less than a week later, on Christmas day, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth's home was blasted by 16 sticks of dynamite. 3 days later, snipers shot at a bus, wounding a pregnant woman through her legs.
On January 10th, 1957, 4 separate Montgomery churches were bombed, along with the houses of two pastors.
And, on January 23, 1957, barely a month after the boycott ended, a black man, Willie Edwards, Jr., was lynched in Montgomery.
The danger was real. The courage was extraordinary. But we knew that, even though for decades we have taken all this for granted.
So, next time we are asked, why a holiday for Dr. King, well....