Edgar Nixon

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Edgar Nixon bigraphy, stories - NAACP, Sleeping Car Porters Union, and Bus Boycott leader in AL

Edgar Nixon : biography

July 12, 1899 – February 25, 1987

Edgar Daniel Nixon (July 12, 1899 – February 25, 1987) was an African-American civil rights leader and union organizer who played a crucial role in organizing the landmark Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama in 1955. It highlighted the issues of segregation in the South, was upheld for more than a year by black residents, and nearly brought the city-owned bus system to bankruptcy. It ended in December 1956, after the United States Supreme Court ruled in the related case, Browder v. Gayle (1956), that the local and state laws were unconstitutional, and ordered the state to end bus segregation.

A longtime organizer and activist, Nixon was president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Montgomery Welfare League, and the Montgomery Voters League. At the time, Nixon already led the Montgomery branch of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union, known as the Pullman Porters Union, which he had helped organize.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described Nixon as "one of the chief voices of the Negro community in the area of civil rights," and "a symbol of the hopes and aspirations of the long oppressed people of the State of Alabama."

Challenging bus segregation

In the early 1950s, Nixon and Jo Ann Robinson, president of the Women’s Political Council, decided to mount a court challenge to the discriminatory seating practices on Montgomery’s municipal buses, along with a boycott of the bus company. A Montgomery ordinance reserved the front seats on these buses for white passengers only, forcing African-American riders to sit in the back. The middle section was available to blacks unless the bus became so crowded that white passengers were standing, in which case, blacks were supposed to give up their seats and stand if necessary. Blacks constituted the majority of riders on the city-owned bus system.

Before the activists could mount the court challenge, they needed someone to voluntarily violate the bus seating law and be arrested for it. Nixon carefully searched for a suitable plaintiff. At the same time, some women mounted their own individual challenges. For instance, the student Claudette Colvin was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger.

He rejected one candidate because he didn’t believe she had the fortitude to see the case through. Nixon rejected Colvin because she became an unwed mother, and a third candidate, Mary Louise Smith, because her father was allegedly an alcoholic. (In 1956, these two women were among five originally included in the case, Browder v. Gayle, filed on behalf of them specifically and representing black riders who had been treated unjustly on the city buses.) See below.)

The final choice was Rosa Parks, the elected secretary of the Montgomery NAACP. On December 1, 1955, Parks entered a Montgomery bus, refused to give up her seat for a white passenger, and was arrested. After being called about Parks’ arrest, Nixon went to bail her out of jail. He arranged for Parks’ friend, Clifford Durr, a sympathetic white lawyer, to represent her. After years of working with Parks, Nixon was certain that she was the ideal candidate to challenge the discriminatory seating policy. Even so, Nixon had to persuade Parks to lead the fight. After consulting with her mother and husband, Parks accepted the challenge.

Early life and education

Edgar D. Nixon was born on July 12, 1899 in rural Lowndes County, Alabama to Wesley M. Nixon and Sue Ann Chappell Nixon. As a child, Nixon received 16 months of formal education, as black students were ill-served in the segregated public school system. His mother died when he was young, and he and his seven siblings were reared among extended family in Montgomery. His father was a Baptist minister., King Encyclopedia Online, accessed 5 February 2013

After working in a train station baggage room, Nixon rose to become a Pullman car porter, which was a well-respected position with good pay. He was able to travel around the country and worked steadily. He worked with them until 1964. In 1928, he joined the new union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, helping organize its branch in Montgomery. He also served as its president for many years.