Rhetorical Analysis Of The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks in 1955, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign that aimed for the desegregation of the bus systems in Montgomery, Alabama.[i] The organization revolved around the emerging civil rights leader and pastor Martin Luther King Jr. Three years later, King’s method of non-violent protests would inspire four students to begin the Greensboro sit-ins in North Carolina, which is regarded as one of the most significant demonstrations at the time.[ii] Many of the discriminatory practices during this time period stems from whiteness, which is a belief about entitlement and ownership for whites based solely on their skin color. The media utilizes rhetorical devices, such as analogy, polarizing

diction, hypocrisy, and photographic imagery, to construct a racially charged atmosphere that pits black protestors against white workers and public institutions during the civil rights demonstrations. This claim is significant to the broader understanding of the structural advantage of whiteness, which relies on presuppositions of white superiority to perpetuate segregation within American society during the Civil Rights Era.
The media use an analogy to negatively racialize the Greensboro protests in the interest of preserving whiteness. The sit ins began as a form of non-violent protests to desegregate ‘white only’ lunch counter services in retail stores. Demonstrators would sit at these counters from opening till closing time. The movement quickly gained ground in local cities and states, catching the attention of the mass media.[iii] Appealing toward a conservative audience, the author of the Chicago Defender's 1960 newspaper article, “Four Students Spark Spreading Drive,” states how the sit-in demonstrations “spread with such contagion.”[iv] The comparison technique implies that the demonstrations aren’t centered at improving society, but is more akin to a virus. The same way a virus can create a pandemic, the Greensboro demonstrations can ‘infect’ society in a catastrophic manner, creating fear and anxiety amongst the people who may be harmed by this ‘disease,’ specifically , white citizens. The fear and anxiety stems from whiteness, an ideology revolved around entitlement and ownership for whites. Conversely, Ohmi’s “Racial Formation” article argues how “new right [institutions] overtly claim to hold ‘color-blind’ views, but covertly manipulate racial fears in order to achieve political gains.” The media is playing on the idea that if these black protesters were to dine amongst whites at lunch counters, whites could stand to lose their so-called “white privilege” through such interracial mixing, a fact which didn’t resonate well with many whites at the time period.XII. The articles’ likening of the Greensboro sit ins to a virus stems from how….
Additionally, liberal and conservative newspaper articles use polarizing diction in their articles to alter the audience's perception of who is being victimized during the Greensboro Sit ins and Montgomery Bus Boycotts.

To stifle the spread of the ‘contagion,’ the article, “Four Students Spark Spreading Drive,”sites how the “good performance of the Southern police” is what “prevented chaos.” [v] By using a favorable term to describe the white institutions, the article works to label police as an admirable unit who selflessly suppressed anarchy. This is contrasted with the ‘chaos’ utilized to describe the sit-in protestors. In making this comment, the article implies that the protests harm society rather than help it. Moreover, words like “contagion” and “chaos” are also utilized to condemn the black’s entitlement to protests; once again, the media plays on white fears that whites might stand to lose their sense of entitlements if they allow minorities to have the same rights as they do. The diction used by the Chicago Defender’s article parallels the word choice of Harold L. Keith’s article, “Are White Supremacists Killing Labor?”, which is about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Triggered by the arrest of Rosa Parks, the NAACP organized the Boycott to change segregation laws regarding bus seats and driver courtesy toward people of color. Emerging Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. was primarily responsible for coordinating the Bus boycott movement.[vii]. Keith’s article

takes a liberal stance in describing the black activists and white bus drivers and bus company during the movement. The author heavily opinionates the article, stating that it was solely the “dogmatic attitude” and the “twisted thinking of the white man” that has dragged the Bus Boycott for months; Keith even cites that the corporate heads of the public transportation association as “irate, white, supremacists.” Words like ‘dogmatic,’ ‘irate,’ and ‘twisted’ negatively label the drivers and company as vile and non-negotiable. Keith utilizes diction to place blame in white institutions, which portrays the bus company and drivers as the perpetrator and black protestors as the victims, prompting the audience to side with the protestors. Chicago Defender’s “Four Students Spark Spreading Drive” uses derogatory diction to negatively describe the protesters during the Greensboro sit-ins, whereas Keith’s article uses pejorative wording to describe whites during the Montgomery Bus Boycotts. Although they take different sides, the media uses negative diction to pit the two racial groups against each other during the social demonstrations.The Sit-ins and Boycotts work toward a similar goal—desegregation in public institutions—yet their depiction differ vastly; however, the rhetoric used to describe their portrayals work to the same effect.
Exploiting contradictions allows the newspapers to illustrate the discrepancy of the Bus companies actions to their claims during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which reveal antipathic effects of the advantage of whiteness.

The 1955 AFRO--American newspaper article “Boycott Still On; Bus Co. Loses $3,000 Daily,” takes a liberal stance in describing the black leaders of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Bus Company. The article states how bus drivers told black passengers, “N…. r get up out of your seat.”[viii] The n-word is a derogatory term used to refer to African Americans—particularly slaves--before and after the Civil War, and its use in the article illustrates that the bus drivers do not even think of blacks as human beings but rather property, authorizing the bus drivers to address black passengers in an uncivilized and insulting manner. Explicit racial language allows the media to point out how racial segregation between white bus drivers and black passengers remains a predominant aspect in the relationship between the two racial groups. Ironically, the AFRO newspaper claims that the Montgomery Bus company “insisted that the drivers were ‘always courteous.’”[ix] However, the ‘N…r’ proclamation from the driver directly opposes the bus company’s statement, and invalidates the company’s message. This dissonance can be explained by George Lipsitz’s article, “The which argues how systemic whiteness has created institutions that stress the incompatibility of racially

defined group identity with the legacy of white supremacy, and therefore advocate a social structural solution of separation, either complete or partial.” The media’s incorporation of explicit language demonstrates the author’s claim to show how whiteness has created an elaborate system that produces unfair gains for whites at the expense of blacks. The entitlement associated with whiteness justifies white's belief that they are racially superior and are entitled to use derogatory language to whomever they want.
Visual rhetoric further exemplifies how the media is creating a racial narrative amongst black protestors and white establishments through color. The 1956 article, “As Martin Luther King Sees it,” is written by Robert Baker of the Washington Post Times-Herald, a publication known for their strongly conservative editorial stance123. Baker’s address of the Montgomery Bus Boycott presents viewers with a photo of King leaning on the side of a car, while being handcuffed from behind by two white police officers. The image has been cropped to focus on King, which is pronounced because the officers are mainly cropped out of the image. King’s face remains squarely in the photo, forcing the reader’s eyes to focus on King’s face. King is illustrated at the center of the photo to exaggerate King’s apprehension. Many conservatives did not support the Boycott and saw King as the cancer of the movement123, and, therefore, they would approve of his arrest. King was known amongst conservatives and liberals as a non-violent man; but, a person who is arrested is typically associated with crime and the photograph calls to question the validity of King's nonviolent nature. The image works to depict King as culpable and at fault. King himself embodied the civil rights movement, and his arrest implies that the black protestors are violent, and works to negatively portray black activists during the Bus Boycott. Visual rhetoric illustrates that if the police symbolize the law and civil order, King embodies the lawbreaker.
Many will remember Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a Dream” speech as the epitome of the American Civil Rights movement, yet the preceding political protests bear just as much significance. Media outlets create a racial disparity between the black protestors and white establishments during the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Greensboro Sit-ins. By utilizing analogy, word choice, hypocrisy, and visual rhetoric, newspaper articles exploit the systematic racism within social institutions during the mid 1900s. Society has come a long way since these civil rights movements, in terms of racial segregation, and have also amassed to different forms of media. Newspapers have been replaced with cable news, smartphone apps, and the internet. These different forms of media collectively report on social and racial demonstrations in contemporary society, but it is ultimately up to all races to work together to end the systemic racism in the American nation.