Civil rights veteran recalls bus boycott

RUSSELLVILLE—Pearl Jackson Green believes it was determination that carried her through the civil rights movement of the 1950s, and the moments of fear she never expected to survive.

Green, who marched during the era of Martin Luther King Jr, recalled her participation in the Montgomery Bus Boycotts that started on Dec. 1, 1955, and lasted 13 months.

Green said she was once thrown off a bus and left to find her way home.

“A young white man stood up and allowed me to have his seat,” she said. “I thought all white people were alike. They’re not.”

She said the bus driver stopped the bus and rebuked the man for giving up his seat, using a racial slur. She said she was put off the bus in the middle of nowhere.

“I stayed in a ditch all night long by myself,” she said. “I was always afraid that I would never make it back home.”

Green said King taught protesters to travel in groups and to remain disciplined.

“If there were four of you, if you would get caught, if there were five of you, then one would get away to come back and tell the story.”

She described repeated visits to a segregated cafeteria during the movement.

“When we would go and order a sandwich, they would spit in it and say, ‘Eat this,” she said. “Of course, we didn’t eat it. Our instructions from Martin Luther King were to put it down and go back the next day.”

She said the protests continued for a year.

“Yes, we were afraid,” Green said of those 13 months. “We were shaken in our boots.”

After high school, Green enrolled at Alabama State University and finished a four-year program in three years while working daily to pay her way.

“I’m not ashamed to talk about the color of my skin,” she said to the students. “And you should not use yours or anybody else’s, because you were not responsible for being born.”

Although Green admits progress has been made since the 1950s and 1960s, challenges remain.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” she said.

“Be honest,” she said, summing up the important things in life. “Whatever you do, be honest.”