January 24, 1956

The Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser Mayor Stops Boycott Talk 5

50 Joe Azbell

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Mayor W. A. Gayle declared yesterday there will be no more discussions with the Negro boycott leaders until they are ready to end the boycott. The mayor declared in a dynamic statement of his stand on the boycott that the vast majority of whites in Montgomery - "do not care whether a Negro ever rides a bus again if it means that the social fabric of our community is to be destroyed so that the Negroes will start riding buses again." Shortly after the mayor issued his statement, it was announced that the entire City Commission, Mayor Gayle, Commissioner Frank Parks and Commissioner Clyde Sellers, had joined the Montgomery Citizens Council. ... His full text statement follows: "The City Commission has attempted with sincerity and honesty to end the bus boycott in a businesslike fashion. "We have held meeting with the Negroes at which proposals were made that would have been accepted by any fair-minded group of people. "But there seems to be a belief on the part of the Negroes that they have the white people hemmed up in a corner and they are not going to give an inch until they can force the white people of our community to submit to their demands - in fact, swallow all of them." "The Negro leaders have forced the bus boycott into a campaign between whether the social fabric of our community will continue to exist or will be destroyed by a group of Negro radicals who have split asunder the fine relationships which have existed between the Negro and white people for generations. "No other city in the South of our size has treated the Negro more fairly. In Montgomery they have better facilities in schools, hospitals, health centers and the like, than in the vast majority of cities. Until the bus boycott occurred, the Montgomery Negro rode the bus cheaper than Negroes in the vest majority of cities in the nation. Now the boycott has been fabricated by the Negroes into a campaign for forcing the white people of our community to accept their demands or else they will not ride the buses. We have attempted to resolve their reasonable complaints but they proved by their refusal to resolve the reasonable ones that they were not interested in whether the bus service was good or not. What they are after is the destruction of our social fabric. "The Negro leaders seem to believe there is considerable concern among whites on whether the Negroes ride the buses or don't ride the buses. There is no such concern among the whites as the white are not alarmed about whether the Negroes ride the buses again. ... "It is not that important to whites that the Negroes ride the buses. This is not a matter of a bus boycott. It is a matter of a community relationship.

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"The Negro leaders have proved they are not interested in ending the boycott but rather in prolonging it so that they may stir up racial strife. The Negro leaders have proved they will say one thing to a white man and another thing to a Negro. They have proved it again and again. "The Negro is the person who is concerned with bus transportation in Montgomery. They have admitted this by their own claims that 75 per cent of the passengers are Negroes. If they want bus transportation, they can ride the buses. I don't believe the majority of whites care one way or another and certainly not enough to destroy our heritage and way of life so that Negroes will get on buses and ride them. "The Negro leaders say the boycott will last until their proposals are given 'sympathetic treatment,' then there is not likelihood of the end of the boycott. "When and if the Negro people desire to end the boycott, my door is open to them. But until they are ready to end it, there will be no more discussions." Earlier yesterday, there was a restoration of normal bus service on three predominantly Negro routes. Montgomery City Lines Manager J. H. Bagley said there were "a few more passengers on other routes" but no "noticeable increase on the Negro routes." ... Bagley said the company had received numerous requests for resumption of service to the Negro sections. That, coupled with a compromise statement issued Saturday by the City Commission, led to the decision to restore service. The bus company was not represented at the Saturday meeting. The Rev. M. L. King, pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and boycott leader, charged that the three Negro minister who talked with the commission were "hood-winked" into attending a city commission meeting Saturday. It was this statement by King that caused Gayle to declare that Negro leaders were "saying one thing to whites and another thing to the Negroes." King also charged that the three Negro ministers who had attended the meeting at the invitation of the commission all told him they had been duped into going. One of the Negro ministers, the Rev. B. F. Mosley who said he attended the meeting issued a statement claiming he had not agreed to any compromise plan for ending the boycott. The Rev. King said that the City Commission statement was "totally erroneous" if it gave the impression an agreement had been reached. "More than 99 per cent of the Negro citizens of Montgomery have stated their position and it remains the same," he said. "The bus protest is still on and it will last until our proposals are given sympathetic treatment." Gayle replied to the "sympathetic treatment" statement that there was no likelihood of an end to the boycott if the Negroes mean what he thought they meant by "sympathetic treatment." Copyright (c) Montgomery Advertiser. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Gannett Co., Inc. by NewsBank, inc.