Carl Rowan - Montgomery Bus Boycott

Montgomery Bus Boycott

In the late 1950s, Rowan covered the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement in the South, including the historic Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott in 1955, resulting from Rosa Parks's refusal to relinquish her bus seat to a white passenger. As the only black reporter covering the story for a national newspaper, Rowan struck a special friendship with the boycott's leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr. When news of an unlikely compromise settlement of the boycott came to Rowan's attention across the Associate Press wire, he notified King, who made quick steps to discredit the story, which was about to appear in a Montgomery newspaper, thus ensuring the continuance of the boycott.

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