The Unlikely World of the Montgomery Bus Boycott: Solidarity Across Alabama, the United Kingdom, and South Africa
The Unlikely World of the Montgomery Bus Boycott analyzes the global influences and impact of the 1955-56 mass protest that many historians peg as the start of the twentieth-century civil rights movement. Author Cole S. Manley moves beyond the borders of Alabama, and even beyond the U.S., to investigate how Black Montgomery boycotters thought about their movement alongside global freedom struggles, from the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa to the anti-color bar battles in the United Kingdom. With each day of the year-long boycott, news of the movement traveled farther, reaching White pacifists in New York, Black internationalists in London, and, not long thereafter, anti-apartheid leaders in South Africa. Manley's book calls for a new reading of the civil rights movement, one which can encompass the expansive thinking and radical dreams of leaders like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and Jo Ann Robinson. The Montgomery boycott was much more than a battle over fair bus seating. It remains an example of the power of protest and solidarity which still inspires struggles for racial and economic justice.
