Interview with Domestic Worker, by Willie M. Lee

Date: January 18, 1956

Time: Morning

Place: Female interviewed in pool car

Occupation: Domestic in white rental area

Age: about 40

[Lee]: Would you tell me what’s going on around here? You see I just came into town, and I’ve been reading in the newspapers something about the people not riding the buses, and I don’t quite understand really what’s happening. So I’d appreciate it if you would tell me.

[Domestic]: You mean ’bout us boycottin’ the buses?

[Lee]: Yes.

[Domestic]: Well, you know, dis is a Jim Crow town, and us is boycottin’ the buses ’cause dey put one of our ’spectable ladies in jail and we didn’t lack it. You know, child, you can jest take so much and soon you git full. Dat’s what happen here. Dey jest put us in jail and put us in jail, and Lord knows we tied of it.

[Lee]: Why did they put the people in jail?

[Domestic]: Dey jest don’t want to treat us right, and of us didn’t move back, they put us in jail. Twuz her last year dey put some school chillen in jail, but dat soon died down. But ’bout 2, 3 months ago Miss Rosa Park, one of our nice ’spectable ladies wuz put in jail, and the folks got full and jest wouldn’t take no more. My sister called me and seyed that she heard dat we wouldn’t ride the buses for a day causer what they did to Miss Park. We didn’t ride ’em neither. We shor fixed ’em.

[Lee]: Well, tell me this, what are you doing in this thing?

[Domestic]: Honey, I jest do like the leaders sey. I go to the rally, pay my money and don’t worry but nothin’. I tell dat woman I wuk fur dat I gets dare when I kin and ef dat won’t do, nothin’ twill. Some of dem fired the workers but dey went right on an got other jobs so dey stopped firing ’em.

[Lee]: When do you think this thing will end?

[Domestic]: I don’t care. I get to wuk an I ain’t hungry, so it don’t matter wid me. It ain’t hurtlin’ us, its hurtin’ dem. I heard dat they had lost $32 million since we stopped ridin’ the buses. Well dis is my stop, see y’all later.

Interview with Maid, by Willie M. Lee

Date: January 20, 1956

Time: 9:00 a.m.

Place: 650 South Decatur Street

Age: 45

Sex: Female

[Maid]: I had heard about Rosa Parks getting put in jail because she would not get up and stand so a white man could sit down. Well, I got a little mad, you know how it is when you hear how white folks treat us. And after that day it just sort of slipped my mind. So things rocked on ’til that Sunday night (the Sunday following Mrs. Parks’ arrest), and the man next door who is a Mason went down to the Tijuana Club. When he came back, he came by my house and showed me these slips of paper that somebody gave out at the club. It said that one of our ladies had been arrested and the next time it may be you, so don’t ride the buses Monday.

I felt good. I said this is what we should do. I got on the phone and called all my friends and told them, and they said they wouldn’t ride.

I didn’t have to work the next day and my insurance lady come by, and I asked her did she ride the bus and she said yes. Then I showed her the slip of paper. She said she hadn’t seen one and asked me if she could have it so she could pass it along to her friends. That’s why I don’t have it. If I did, I’d let you see it.

[Lee]: Thank you very much for what you’ve told me, but now tell me this. Had anything like this ever happened before Mrs. Parks was arrested?

[Maid]: Oh yes, honey, this stuff has been going on for a long time. To tell you the truth, it’s been happening ever since I came here before the war (World War II). But here in the last few years they’ve been getting worse and worse. When you get on the bus they yell: “Get on back there” (very empathetic and expressive person), and half of the time they wouldn’t take your transfer, then they make you get up so white men could sit down where there were no seats in the back. And you know about a year ago they put one of the high school girls in jail ’cause she wouldn’t move. They should have boycotted the buses then. But we are sure fixing ’em now and I hope we don’t ever start back riding. It’ll teach them how to treat us. We people, we are not dogs or cats.

[Lee]: Speaking of the way they treat you, exactly what do you want them to do before you will ride the buses again?

[Maid]: All we want ’em to do is treat us right. They shouldn’t make me get up for some white person when I paid the same fare and I got on first. And they should stop being so nasty ’cause after all they are not doing us no favors. We pay just like the white folks. And too, we want them to put Negro bus drivers in the sections where Negroes live.

[Lee]: Do you think the bus company will agree to give these things?

[Maid]: Well, they are the ones losing the money and our preachers say we will not ride unless they give us what we want….

Source: Daybreak of Freedom: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, edited by Stewart Burns (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 221–23. Used by permission of the University of North Carolina Press.