Books and Manuscripts

A Significant Collection Related to the Montgomery Improvement Association and Civil Rights Activists Alfonso and Lucy B. Campbell

"The result of our determination to organize against these evils, particularly as they expressed themselves in bus segregation, was the Montgomery Improvement Association. Little did we know when we brought this organization into being that we were starting a movement whose influence would be felt in large cities and small villages of America, in the sunny climes of Africa, and the rich soils of Asia, indeed throughout the whole civilized world." -Martin Luther King, Fourth Anniversary of the Montgomery Improvement Association, December 3, 1959

Montgomery, Alabama, 1956-61. Collection of 10 printed and mimeograph items related to the Montgomery Improvement Association and Civil Rights Activists Alfonso and Lucy B. Campbell. Size and condition vary.

A significant collection related to Montgomery, Alabama civil rights activists Alfonso and Lucy B. Campbell, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Alfonso Campbell and Lucy Barnes met at Alabama State College (now Alabama State University) in the 1940s where Alfonso worked as Supervisor of Transportation and Lucy as a staff librarian. They married in Montgomery in 1946, and were raising two young children in 1954 when 25-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr., became the 20th Pastor of the prominent Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Respected members within their community, when the Montgomery Bus Boycott began to take shape in the winter of 1955, the Campbells were among some of its early organizers that helped ensure its success.

The idea of a mass demonstration to address the discrimination and violence faced by Montgomery's African American community had been brewing in the city for years prior to December 1955. Organizations including the Montgomery Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, the Women's Political Council (WPC), the Negro Improvement League, as well as the NAACP, among others--sometimes working in tandem--worked tirelessly to organize community action to seek justice. When the Campbell's friend Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955 for her refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man, leading members of the African American community including Jo Ann Robinson (president of the WPC) and E.D. Nixon (president of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP) seized the moment to organize a mass protest. On Friday, December 2, the day following Parks's arrest, Robinson circulated a flyer within the African American community calling for a boycott of the city's buses the following Monday, December 5. That same Friday night a planning meeting was held at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church between these civic leaders and the city's Black clergy, and all agreed to support and publicize the boycott over the weekend. The following Monday's single-day boycott was incredibly successful with over 90% of the Black community participating and refusing to use the city's buses. That same day the boycott's organizers called for a mass community meeting that night to decide whether the boycott should be extended. The Campbells attended this meeting, held at the spacious Holt Street Baptist Church, alongside thousands of their fellow community members who crammed into the church and overflowed onto its lawn. The crowd overwhelmingly voted in favor of continuing the boycott, and the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was created to plan, coordinate, and direct it, with Dr. King unanimously elected as its president. The MIA's other officers included, L. Roy Bennett as vice president (replaced by Ralph D. Abernathy); Moses W. Jones as second vice president; Erna Dungee as financial secretary; U.J. Fields as recording secretary (later replaced by W.J. Powell); E.N. French as corresponding secretary; E.D. Nixon as treasurer; C.W. Lee as assistant treasurer; and A.W. Wilson, as parliamentarian.

Due to his experience as Supervisor of Transportation at Alabama State, and his strong ties within the African American community, Alfonso Campbell was selected, alongside his close friend Rufus Lewis, to co-chair the MIA's Transportation Committee. The Committee played a critical role in the boycott's ultimate success by creating a vast carpool and taxi network in Montgomery (called "rolling churches") to sustain the protest by circumventing the city's bus system. Alfonso, Lewis, and their numerous volunteers, devised a network of over 40 pick-up and drop-off stations that shuttled virtually all 50,000 of the city's Black residents (more than one-third of the city's entire population) to and from their jobs, churches, schools, and everyday affairs, during the 13-month-long protest. With over a decade of experience as Supervisor of Transportation at Alabama State, Alfonso was instrumental in helping maintain the efficient operation of this complex transportation system, and helped map routes and secure automobiles, fuel, and maintenance, all in the face of harassment and violence from the city's police force (in one instance he was given six tickets in a two-hour period for transporting protesters) and local white population, and at great personal risk to his job at Alabama State. Concurrent with this role, Alfonso also served as chair of the MIA's Purchasing Committee, and through his connections as a part-time car salesman he successfully purchased over a dozen automobiles used in the MIA's carpool system, a noteworthy feat when dealerships routinely refused to do business with boycott supporter. As Jo Ann Robinson wrote in her memoir regarding Alfonso and the Transportation Committee's work, The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson (The University of Tennessee Press, 1987), "the members of the Transportation Committee...did a superb job mapping out the routes for Negroes in every section of the city, and all got free service." (p. 93), and described their work as "so effectively planned that many writers described it as comparable in precision to a military operation." (p. 55). During the long months when the boycott's success was uncertain, the MIA held weekly mass meetings and sermons--often led by Dr. King and First Baptist Church pastor and Campbell family friend, Ralph Abernathy--to keep the African American community mobilized, which Alfonso and Lucy often attended. During this time Lucy began to chronicle the events and record the experiences of the boycott's participants in an album that is now held in the archives of the Ollie L. Brown Afro-American Heritage Special Collection at The Levi Watkins Learning Center at Alabama State University. In November 1956 the Supreme Court ruled in Browder v. Gayle to end segregated seating on public buses. The following month an order was issued in Montgomery to desegregate the city's buses, and after 381 days, on December 20, 1956, Dr. King officially ended the boycott. The next morning, Alfonso rode on one of the first desegregated buses in Montgomery, alongside Dr. King, and others whose tireless efforts proved so effective.

After the boycott the MIA became one of the founding organizations of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and in the later 1950s and 60s held voter registration campaigns, annual conferences on non-violence, and fought for the integration of schools and public facilities. The Campbells remained involved with the MIA until their move to Virginia in 1964, when Alfonso became Assistant Dean of Men and Lucy became a staff librarian at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University). The boycott's success, due to the efforts of Alfonso, Lucy, and their neighbors, helped galvanize support for civil rights across the United States and provided a blueprint for other mass demonstrations throughout the region.

1. Printed Montgomery Improvement Association Program
Montgomery, Alabama, December, 1956. Printed program for the first "Institute on Non-Violence and Social Change", sponsored by the Montgomery Improvement Association, held from December 3-9, 1956. 8vo. Unpaginated (8 pp.). Original limp printed self-wrappers; all edges trimmed; unevenly toned.

2. Printed Montgomery Improvement Association Program
Montgomery, Alabama, December, 1958. Printed program for the "Third Annual Institute on Non-Violence and Social Change", sponsored by the Montgomery Improvement Association, held from December 1-7, 1958. 8vo. Unpaginated (8 pp.). Original staple-bound limp printed self-wrappers; all edges trimmed; contemporary vertical crease.

3. Printed Montgomery Improvement Association Program
Montgomery, Alabama, December, 1959. Printed program for the "Fourth Annual Institute on Non-Violence and Social Change", sponsored by the Montgomery Improvement Association, held from December 3-6, 1959. 8vo. Unpaginated (8 pp.). Original limp printed self-wrappers; all edges trimmed; sheets loose from now-removed staple.

4. Printed Montgomery Improvement Association Program
Montgomery, Alabama, December, 1960. Printed program for the Montgomery Improvement Association's "Fifth Anniversary and the Annual Institute on Non-Violence", held from December 5-11, 1960. 8vo. Unpaginated (16 pp.). Original staple-bound limp printed self-wrappers; all edges trimmed; contemporary vertical crease.

5. Printed Montgomery Improvement Association Program
Montgomery, Alabama, December, 1961. Printed program for the Montgomery Improvement Association's "Sixth Anniversary and the Annual Institute on Non-Violence", held from December 4-10, 1961. 8vo. Unpaginated (12 pp.). Original limp printed self-wrappers; all edges trimmed; contemporary vertical crease; sheets loose from now-removed staples.

6. Copy of a Typed Letter, signed
Montgomery, Alabama, April 9, 1956. One sheet, 10 3/4 x 8 1/2 in. (273 x 216 mm). Copy of a typed letter, signed by Frank McGough, President of the Capital Chevrolet Company, to Alfonso L. Campbell and the Inter Denominational (Ministerial) Aligence (sic), regarding the sale of 12 cars for use by the Montgomery Improvement Association during the Montgomery Bus Boycott; small slip mounted to bottom explaining the significance of the letter. Wear along edges.

7. Robinson, Jo Ann
Montgomery Improvement Association News Letter
Montgomery, Alabama, June, 7, 1956. Vol. 1, No. 1. Three mimeographed sheets, each measuring 14 x 8 1/2 in. (356 x 216 mm.). Edited by Jo Ann Robinson. Creasing from contemporary folds; dampstained in upper left edge and corner of each sheet; open tear from now-removed staple in top edge; scattered minor wear.

8. (King, Martin Luther, Jr.)
Mimeograph Speech
San Francisco, June, 1956. Mimeograph typed speech of the "Address by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, and President of the Montgomery Improvement Association, Montgomery, Alabama, at 47th NAACP Annual Convention, Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, California, Wednesday, June 27, 1956, 8 P.M." 13 pp.; each measuring 11 x 8 1/2 in. (279 x 216 mm); stapled at top left corner. Scattered creasing along edges, wear and short closed tears along same; unevenly toned; final sheet loose but present.

9. (King, Martin Luther, Jr.)
Mimeograph Speech
Montgomery, Alabama, December 3, 1956. Mimeograph typed speech of the "Annual Address of Dr. M.L. King, Jr. Delivered at the First Annual Institute on Non-Violence and Social Change Under the Auspices of the Montgomery Improvement Association." (1), 20 pp., each measuring 11 x 8 1/2 in. (279 x 216 mm); stapled along left edge. Ink stamp, "Compliments of Campbell Family Trust Archives" on title-page and p. 20; first sheet loose; scattered minor wear.

10. (King, Martin Luther, Jr.)
Mimeograph Speech
Montgomery, Alabama, December 3, 1959. Mimeographed typed speech of the "Annual Address by President Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Fourth Anniversary of the Montgomery Improvement Association at the Bethel Baptist Church, 7:30 P.M., December 3, 1959." 18 sheets, printed and paginated on rectos only, each measuring 11 x 8 1/2 in. (279 x 216 mm). Scattered minor wear along edges.

Alfonso Leon Campbell, Sr. (1904-2002) was born in Mitchell Station, Alabama, completed his early education in Mt. Meigs, Alabama, and attended and graduated from the State Normal High School in Montgomery. He graduated from Alabama State Teachers College (Alabama State University) in 1934, where he was a star football and baseball player (he was inducted into the ASU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1983). Following graduation he briefly taught at the State Normal High School before becoming Supervisor of Transportation at his alma mater, ASU. He served in the Army during World War II where he participated in the D-Day invasion of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, rose to the rank of Master Sergeant, and was decorated with four Bronze Stars. Following the war he resumed his work at ASU where he met his wife, Lucy Barnes, who he married in May, 1946. Like Dr. King, he was a proud life-long member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, and in1963 he became Assistant Dean of Men at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University).

Lucy Barnes Campbell (1920-2013) was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from Portsmouth's I.C. Norcom High School. She was a member of the first graduating class of North Carolina Central University's School of Library Science and, following graduation briefly served as a librarian at Darden High School in Wilson, North Carolina. She remained at Darden before accepting a position as a staff librarian at Alabama State where she met Alfonso in the 1940s. She returned to the Portsmouth area with her family in 1963 when she accepted a position as circulation librarian at Hampton Institute, and where she published works on the history of the Library School there. Lucy was a life-long member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.