Changes

==1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott==

==1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott==

In the summer of 1953, LeBlanc intervened with a short-lived Baton Rouge Bus boycott by T. J. Jemison, an [[African-American]] minister. Jemison tested a new local ordinance allowing black passengers to fill up empty seats from the rear of the bus so long as whites could have access to the front seats. Jemison sat in a front seat of a bus. The bus company suspended two drivers for not complying with the ordinance. The drivers' union called a four-day strike, which ended when Attorney General LeBlanc declared the ordinance unconstitutional on the premise that it violated Louisiana's [[segregation]] laws. Blacks then formed the United Defense League, organized a free-ride network so that passengers could avoid using the city buses, and filed suit against the city to desegregate the buses. The Baton Rouge experience was observed by [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]], who wrote that Jemison's "painstaking description of the Baton Rouge experience proved invaluable" to him two years later in the bus boycott in [[Montgomery, Alabama|Montgomery]], [[Alabama]].<ref name=bono>The Best of New Orleans.com, June 17, 2003.</ref>

In the summer of 1953, LeBlanc intervened with a short-lived Baton Rouge Bus boycott by T. J. Jemison, an [[African-American]] minister. Jemison tested a new local ordinance allowing black passengers to fill up empty seats from the rear of the bus so long as whites could have access to the front seats. Jemison sat in a front seat of a bus. The bus company suspended two drivers for not complying with the ordinance. The drivers' union called a four-day strike, which ended when Attorney General LeBlanc declared the ordinance unconstitutional on the premise that it violated Louisiana's [[segregation]] laws. Blacks then formed the United Defense League, organized a free-ride network so that passengers could avoid using the city buses, and filed suit against the city to desegregate the buses. The Baton Rouge experience was observed by [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]], who wrote that Jemison's "painstaking description of the Baton Rouge experience proved invaluable" to him two years later in the bus boycott in [[Montgomery]], [[Alabama]].<ref name=bono>The Best of New Orleans.com, June 17, 2003.</ref>

On June 23, 1953, Jemison called off the boycott after the city council passed a new ordinance under which the first-come, first-served, seating system of back-to-front and front-to-back was reinstated, with the first two seats on any bus reserved for white passengers and the back bench left for blacks. Anyone else could sit on any of the rows in the middle. To comply with state segregation laws, blacks and white were prohibited from sitting next to each other within this arrangement.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis53.htm#1953brbb|title=Baton Rouge Bus Boycott|publisher=Civil Rights Movement Veterans|accessdate=September 5, 2010}}</ref> While a number of boycotters had wanted to challenge segregation directly, the majority backed the municipal compromise.<ref name=bono/>

On June 23, 1953, Jemison called off the boycott after the city council passed a new ordinance under which the first-come, first-served, seating system of back-to-front and front-to-back was reinstated, with the first two seats on any bus reserved for white passengers and the back bench left for blacks. Anyone else could sit on any of the rows in the middle. To comply with state segregation laws, blacks and white were prohibited from sitting next to each other within this arrangement.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis53.htm#1953brbb|title=Baton Rouge Bus Boycott|publisher=Civil Rights Movement Veterans|accessdate=September 5, 2010}}</ref> While a number of boycotters had wanted to challenge segregation directly, the majority backed the municipal compromise.<ref name=bono/>