Abstract

In The Unlikely World of the Montgomery Bus Boycott: Solidarity across Alabama, the United Kingdom and South Africa, author Cole Manley contributes to a growing body of scholarship on the Montgomery bus boycott. The author acknowledges that there continues to be numerous studies on how the boycott influenced the course of the civil rights movement as well as the implications of the boycott on domestic and civil politics (15). However, insufficient attention has been paid to the boycott's international impact. Manley emphasizes that his book does not reiterate the well-established timeline of the boycott or situate it within context of the federal government; rather, it “explores the critical organizing by the Women's Political Council (WPC) during the late 1940s and early 1950s and links this work to the transnational ramifications of the Montgomery boycott” (24). Specifically, Manley contends that the Montgomery bus boycott represented a global and local struggle due to two contributing factors. First, the pacifist advisors of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and the organizers of Montgomery connected the boycott to social and resistance movements overseas. Second, the boycott became an international media event which initiated coverage from both international news organizations and independent activist groups.To begin, Manley contextualizes the political and social organizing in Montgomery within a post-war era. The author divides the book chronologically into two sections, each covering an international bus boycott to show the influence of the Montgomery bus boycott on social movements overseas. In the first section titled, “Gandhi, Montgomery, and the FOR Comic Book,” he provides a thorough analysis of the ways in which Gandhian nonviolence and decolonization influenced public perceptions of the boycott organizers. Manley focuses particular attention on Rosa Parks, Jo Ann Robinson, and Dr. Lawrence Reddick and their awareness and articulation of Gandhian nonviolence.Further, Manley acknowledges the influence of the FOR in promoting the Montgomery bus boycott overseas. In 1957, the FOR published a comic book to affirm the movement's theological and nonviolent principles. In this comic book, the FOR strategically and explicitly positioned the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a “Gandhian hero” (53). As Manley writes, “Like Gandhi, King recognized that social movements could transform struggles in faraway places. In his sermons and speeches, King often referenced an interconnected and interdependent world, explaining that out of this ‘world house’ there could emerge a ‘beloved community’” (42–43). Thus, the objective of the FOR's comic book was to provide global activists and nonviolent organizers a handbook to articulate King's philosophy of nonviolent resistance and the social gospel. For Manley, “the global distribution of the comic book is one way of tracing social movements across the Atlantic . . . [and] clearly [seeing] how Montgomery became a reference point for anti-apartheid activists” (57–59).Intended for broad dissemination, Manley reasons, “the comic book created a mythology of the Montgomery boycott that shaped perceptions of King and the United States civil rights movement” (57). By 1958, the comic book began to circulate throughout South Africa, and Manley draws a parallel between the Montgomery bus boycott and the South African Alexandra bus boycott. He argues that, “Like in Montgomery, Black South Africans had, through sheer determination, won concessions despite brutal state violence” (59). However, Manley is cautious to draw similarities between the two bus boycotts as South Africans used the Alexandra bus boycott as a means of both nonviolence and violent resistance, which contrasts with King's nonviolent philosophy. To conclude the first section, Manley acknowledges that Montgomery and South Africa not only aligned through the Black press, but civil rights leaders united themselves with the continued growth of the anti-apartheid movement.In the second section of his book, “Montgomery and Bristol's Transnational Ties,” Manley analyzes the 1963 Bristol bus boycott to exemplify how citizens of other countries interpreted the boycott in Montgomery. To introduce his analysis, Manley draws upon the similarities between Montgomery and Bristol. For example, both cities were tied to transatlantic slavery. By the mid to late 1800s, Alabama had become one of largest slave-owning states with at least four slave depots operating in Montgomery (63). Additionally, throughout the nineteenth century, Bristol ships transported over five hundred thousand slaves from Africa to the Americas (64). Although Manley acknowledges commonalties between the movements, he also recognizes the differences. For instance, the 1963 Bristol bus boycott resulted from the failure of bus management companies to hire Black drivers and negotiations with protesters proceeded without the involvement of courts and legal representation. Additionally, the Bristol bus boycott did not gain broad cultural support or mass participation but gained appeal from white city leaders. However, despite the contrasts between the Montgomery and Bristol boycotts, Manley highlights the global influence of media networks on transnational organizing. The transnational Black press reported on the boycott in Montgomery for activists and readers in the United Kingdom.To conclude, Manley poses questions about the public and collective memory of freedom struggles as forms of social movements. Although Manley cautions that the “stories should [not] be entirely removed from the political context in which they are written” (16), he argues that the lessons from the Montgomery and Bristol boycotts can offer an account of what a globally unified social movement can achieve in a postwar era (16). Manley contends, “Revisiting the Montgomery and Bristol boycotts can help modern-day participants in social movements understand how freedom struggles connect and relate to each other during a political moment” (25).Manley's analysis of the Montgomery bus boycott's international impact in South Africa and the United Kingdom allows for a closer examination of King's nonviolent philosophy throughout his career. As Manley argues, King's nonviolent philosophy serves a unique rhetorical function because of its historical and global context. The origins of King's nonviolent philosophy within and beyond his speeches allow for a wider and global context for examination. However, Manley acknowledges the lack of research correlating Montgomery and transnational boycott events.Manley's analysis carefully articulates the ways in which King's theology was motivated by transnational politics. He reasons, “Anticolonialism and liberation theology inspired King's global thinking and encouraged him to align his public addresses on the [Montgomery] boycott with independence movements overseas. . . . As King understood it, the social gospel was a borderless and transnational concept that could be adapted to interpret political events ranging from the Montgomery boycott to anticolonial wars of liberation” (42–44). Thus, Manley offers justification for how, through the FOR comic book, Montgomery became a reference point for anti-apartheid activists. His book provides a nuanced understanding of how King's theology and philosophical assumptions connect divine power and human agency for the purposes of social change.However, Manley is cautious not to over emphasize a universal claim of King's theology and nonviolent philosophy with the correlation between the Montgomery boycott and the protests overseas. Particularly, he faults the FOR for making King the center of the Montgomery boycott. Apart from a reference to Rosa Parks, there was no mention by the FOR of Jo Ann Robinson and the influential role of the WPC in publicizing the boycott. Manley acknowledges, however, that Jo Ann Robinson insisted that the whole world would be watching (62).Manley's attention to King's nonviolent philosophy and theological teachings throughout the civil rights movement helps him as he attempts to account for King's importance in transnational social movements without overstating his role in the Montgomery boycott. This articulate balance reflects Manley's acknowledgement of King's nonviolent philosophy as well as its expansive presence beyond Montgomery. For “The connections and disconnections between civil rights struggles in the United States and in the United Kingdom, as well as ties between these movements and the anti-apartheid struggle, suggest a complex web of social movements” (86).The Unlikely World of the Montgomery Bus Boycott: Solidarity across Alabama, the United Kingdom and South Africa benefits most from the emphasis on King's nonviolent philosophy and theological teachings. Manley's strategic use of the social gospel as well as a detailed contextual history strengthen his argument that the Montgomery bus boycott represented both global and local struggle. Although Manley acknowledges that research continues on how the boycott influenced the course of the civil rights movement, as well as the implications of the boycott on domestic and civil politics, he shifts to examine the effect of Montgomery within a transnational context. The greatest contribution of Manley's book is its articulation and theorization of how social movement research transcends transnational boundaries. Although Manley notes the limits of his research, the book serves to initiate future studies and theorize the ways in which the Montgomery bus boycott influenced global social change.