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iQ55TW The Jim Crow rules for the public bus system in Montgomery almost defy belief today. Black customers had to enter the bus at the front door, pay the fare, exit the front door and climb aboard again at the rear door. Even though the majority of bus passengers were black, the front four rows of seats were always reserved for white customers. Bennett wrote: »It was a common sight in those days to see Black men and women standing in silence and silent fury over the four empty seats reserved for whites.« Behind these seats was a middle section that blacks could use only if there was no white demand. However, if so much as one white customer needed a seat in this »no- man's land,« all the blacks in that section had to move. Bennett concluded: »This was, as you can see, pure madness, and it caused no end of trouble and hard feeling.« In fact, Parks herself was once thrown off a bus for refusing to endure the charade of entry by the back door. In the year preceding Parks's fateful ride, three other black women had been arrested for refusing to give their seats to white men. Still the system was firmly entrenched, and Parks would often walk to her home to spare herself the humiliation of the bus.
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