The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to desegregate buses in Montgomery, Alabama in November 1956 proved so successful that blacks in Atlanta used it as a model to launch their own protest. Under the leadership of the Rev. William Holmes Borders, a group of black ministers formed what they called the Love, Law and Liberation Movement. Also known as Triple L, the goal was to achieve a similar victory in Atlanta.
At the time bus drivers carried firearms and were given police powers to arrest blacks who refused to sit in the back of the bus or give up a seat to a white passenger. Inadequate service and segregated seating remained subjects of controversy in the black community.
Unlike the Montgomery’s bus boycott, however, Atlanta employed different tactics.
On Jan. 9, 1957, the group of six ministers boarded a bus at the corner of Mitchell and Whitehall streets with the sole mission of refusing to sit in the back. “We are going to ride until these buses are desegregated,” Borders reportedly told his congregation the prior Sunday. “If they take the bus to the barn, we’ll ride it to the barn and then get another. We’ll take every bus in Atlanta to the barn if necessary.”
The demonstration was relatively peaceful. Only clergy were involved and the men agreed not to sit next to white passengers – especially women. They even told Mayor William B. Hartsfield of their plans prior to the event.
Once the men took their seats at the front of the vehicle, white passengers exited, and after switching the sign to “Special,” the driver returned the vehicle to the garage where the city’s buses were kept overnight.
The next day the men were arrested, setting the stage for a later lawsuit to challenge the Jim Crow law requiring black riders to sit in the back of buses.
Two years later, in January 1959, a federal district court ruled in favor of the ministers, ending more than six decades of segregation on Atlanta’s city buses. After Borders insisted on a “cooling off period,” the official integration of the system took place on Jan. 22, 1959.
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