To Joffre Stewart
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr. (Montgomery Improvement Association)
Date: August 21, 1956
Location: Montgomery, Ala.?
Genre: Letter
Topic: Montgomery Bus Boycott
Details
Stewart, who had written to King on 31 July, was a member of Peacemakers, a radical pacifist group founded in 1948. A delegation of Peacemakers had visited Montgomery to support the boycott.
Mr. Joffre Stewart
6114 S. May Street
Chicago 21, Illinois
Dear Mr. Stewart:
This is just a note to acknowledge receipt of your recent letter.
You make inquiry concerning the date that we decided to ask for complete desegregation on the bus. Unfortunately, I do not remember the exact date, but it came immediately after the Mayor announced the “get-tough policy.” We had negotiated for several weeks to no avail. The City Commission insisted that what we were asking for could not be done on the basis of the present law; so we had no other alternative but to attack the structure of the law itself. It was at this time that we filed a suit in the Federal Court asking the Court to declare segregation unconstitutional in public transportation.1
Sincerely yours,
Martin L. King, Jr.,
President
MLK:j
1. Browder v. Gayle was filed on 1 February 1956.
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954-1968, Boston University, Boston, Mass.