Jo Ann Gibson Robinson
Jo Ann Gibson Robinson (1912–1992) was a significant civil rights activist and educator known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Born in Culloden, Georgia, she faced early challenges, including the death of her father and the subsequent move to Macon, where she excelled academically. After earning her degree, Robinson taught in African American schools and engaged in graduate studies, ultimately contributing to the academic community in Montgomery, Alabama.
In Montgomery, Robinson became active in the Women's Political Council and was inspired to lead a bus boycott following Rosa Parks' arrest in December 1955. She organized the community, printing flyers to rally support, and played a vital role in the boycott that lasted over a year, which ultimately led to the integration of Montgomery’s bus system. Her efforts were met with intimidation, including harassment and arrest, yet she remained steadfast in her commitment to equality.
Robinson's contributions were often overlooked until she published her memoir, *The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It*, in 1987, which highlighted the crucial role of women in the Civil Rights movement. Her work has been recognized for its lasting impact on civil rights scholarship and the understanding of grassroots activism. Robinson's legacy continues to inspire those seeking social justice and equality.
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Subject Terms
Jo Ann Gibson Robinson
Educator and activist
- Born: April 17, 1912
- Birthplace: Near Culloden, Georgia
- Died: August 29, 1992
- Place of death: unknown
Robinson empowered African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, through her civil rights work in the Women’s Political Council and Montgomery Improvement Association, initiating and sustaining the Montgomery bus boycott. Her efforts inspired people of diverse races nationwide to protest racism and support integration.
Early Life
Jo Ann Gibson Robinson was born on April 17, 1912, in Culloden, Georgia, to farmers Owen Boston Gibson and Dollie (Webb) Gibson. Robinson helped her family with chores on their 100-acre farm in Crawford County. She attended a rural segregated school. In 1918, her father died and her widowed mother, tired of agricultural labor, settled the family in Macon, in adjacent Bibb County. Robinson excelled academically, representing her class as valedictorian at her 1929 graduation. She received scholarships and enrolled in nearby Georgia State College at Fort Valley, earning a bachelor of science degree in 1936.
After college, Robinson taught in Macon’s African American schools. She married Wilbur Robinson in 1943. The next year, she gave birth to their son, who died in infancy. Her grief over the child’s death resulted in the couple’s 1946 divorce. Robinson began graduate studies in literature at Atlanta University and wrote a thesis on George Eliot’s treatment of sin en route to earning her master’s degree in 1948. She briefly pursued doctoral work in English at Columbia University’s Teachers College before moving to Crockett, Texas, to chair the English department at Mary Allen College. Harper Councill Trenholm, Jr., president of Alabama State College (ASC), recruited Robinson for his school, and she moved to Montgomery during the summer of 1949.
Life’s Work
In Montgomery, Robinson attended services at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and joined the Women’s Political Council (WPC). After leaving her car at home during the 1949 Christmas holidays, Robinson boarded a bus headed to the city’s airport to fly to Cleveland, Ohio. Distracted, she sat in the fifth row, ahead of the segregated area. Robinson was startled when the driver stopped the bus and assaulted her verbally while demanding she move to the rear.
In 1950, Robinson became WPC president and began collecting Montgomery African Americans’ stories of hostile bus drivers. She voiced suggestions to improve public transportation for African Americans when interacting with white leaders at city meetings. In November, 1954, Robinson heard U.S. congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., discuss the 1941 Harlem bus boycott when he spoke at ASC. She recognized the potential economic impact of a local bus boycott because approximately seventy-five percent of Montgomery passengers were African American.
Montgomery attorney Fred Gray phoned Robinson on December 1, 1955, notifying her that Rosa Parks had been arrested. Robinson agreed that incident would unite the community to boycott, recommending her pastor, Martin Luther King, Jr., as the protest’s leader. She printed 52,500 flyers announcing a one-day boycott on the day of Parks’s trial. On December 5, approximately fifty thousand African Americans walked instead of riding buses.
Robinson joined the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which was formed to direct an extended boycott. She served on the MIA executive board and edited its newsletter. Robinson participated in the boycott carpool, driving three times a day. Policemen ticketed Robinson, attempting to intimidate her to quit transporting boycotters. She had stones thrown at her house and acid poured on her car.
After indictments of eighty-nine boycott leaders, including Robinson, she went with MIA leaders to the county courthouse on February 22, 1956. She was arrested, fingerprinted, photographed, and released on three hundred dollars’ bond. In 1956, Robinson observed legal proceedings, including King’s trial and the Browder v. Gayle hearing. She celebrated when African Americans resumed riding buses on December 21, 1956, after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Montgomery buses integrated.
Robinson left Montgomery in 1960 for a position at Grambling College in Louisiana. In 1961, she agreed to teach English in Los Angeles, California, public schools. She also worked with the League of Women Voters to register voters. After her 1976 retirement, Robinson, encouraged by historians’ interest in her boycott role, revised a memoir she had written about her Montgomery experiences. Her book, The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It (1987), preserved what otherwise might have been overlooked aspects of the boycott. Robinson died on August 29, 1992.
Significance
Robinson’s actions unified people who were powerless individually to achieve common goals and pursue equality. Contemporaries suggested that Robinson’s strategies and enthusiasm for the boycott were on par with King’s leadership. She received minimal recognition outside Montgomery until she published her memoir three decades later. That book provided insights essential for historians to gain a comprehensive understanding of the boycott, particularly how African American women shaped the Civil Rights movement and how leaders such as King benefited from Robinson’s ideas. The Southern Association for Women Historians honored Robinson in 1989 for her contribution to civil rights scholarship.
Bibliography
Hare, Kenneth M. They Walked to Freedom, 1955-1956: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Champaign, Ill.: Spotlight Press, 2005. Contemporary photographs, documents, and newspaper images supplement text in this fiftieth-anniversary commemoration of the boycott.
Robinson, Jo Ann Gibson. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson. Foreword by David J. Garrow. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987. Chronological account describes endeavors crucial to the boycott’s success, accomplished by women who were often overshadowed by male leaders.
Scharff, Virginia. “Resisting Arrest: Jo Ann Robinson and the Power to Move.” In Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement, and the West. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Examines the roles of place, freedom, education, and mobility in Robinson’s life.
Williams, Donnie, and Wayne Greenhaw. The Thunder of Angels: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People Who Broke the Back of Jim Crow. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2006. Williams, who owned the retired Rosa Parks bus, presents details unavailable in other boycott histories.