Working Papers
The Montgomery bus boycotts ended in
December 1956 when the United States
Supreme Court ruled that segregated seating
in city buses was illegal. Immediately Rustin
put his attention to institutionalizing the
kinds of efforts that had made the
Montgomery boycotts succeed. He traced the
boycotters’ success to their development of a
program for action and their insistence on a
pacifist strategy of non-violent direct action.
The written product of Rustin’s efforts at
institutionalization were the 7 Working
Papers for the entity that would become the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In
these Working Papers, Rustin envisaged an
organization that would challenge racism and
poverty, as well as assert workers’ rights
under the leadership of the black Southern
church. The Working Papers were endorsed by
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Working Paper #1 (PDF)
Permission from the Estate of Bayard Rustin