On this day in Alabama history: Jo Ann Robinson was born
Rosa Parks took the action and Jo Ann Robinson helped drive the bus boycott in Montgomery. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
April 17, 1912
Civil rights activist Jo Ann Robinson was born in Georgia. Robinson moved to Montgomery in 1949 to become an English professor at Alabama State College and was instrumental in implementing the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Following the arrest of Rosa Parks on Dec. 1, 1955, Robinson wrote and mimeographed thousands of flyers calling for a boycott of the city’s buses. Throughout the boycott, she served as president of the Women’s Political Council and an active member of the Montgomery Improvement Association, writing the organization’s weekly newsletter. Robinson published her memoir, “The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It,” in 1987.
Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.
For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.
