ராஜபார்வை - RAJAPAARVAI

 

Cheeseburger and Change of History.

 

The case citation 364 US 454 (1960) of the U.S. Supreme Court has become highly significant and historic as the decision in that case filed by a 21 year old negro law student of Howard University, Washington D.C. against the Commonwealth of Virginia has changed the course of history of racial segregation in the country.

The petitioner, belonged to Selma, Alabama State and planned to return home from Washington D.C. He bought a Trailways bus ticket from there to Montgomery, Alabama. He boarded a bus on a fateful day in Oct 1958 at 8 p.m. and the bus arrived at Richmond 'Trailways Bus Terminal', Virginia, about 10:40 p.m. As the bus driver announced a forty-minute stopover there, the Petitioner got off the bus and went into the bus terminal to get something to eat. In the station, he found a restaurant in which one part was used to serve white people and one to serve Negroes. Disregarding this division, the petitioner stepped into the ‘clinically clean’ white section (compared to the “very unsanitary” black section) and sat at table. On noticing this ‘trespass’ by a black, a waitress rushed to ask him to move over to the other section where there were 'facilities' to serve coloured people. The Petitioner firmly refused to move and told her that he was an interstate bus passenger. He ordered a cheeseburger and tea. The waitress immediately withdrew not to bring the ordered items but to bring the Assistant Manager there who 'instructed' the petitioner to 'leave the white portion of the restaurant and advised him that he could be served in the ‘coloured portion.' Upon the petitioner's stout refusal to leave, an officer was called and the petitioner was arrested. He was jailed, tried and convicted with a fine of ten dollars in the Police Justice's Court of Richmond on a charge that he 'Unlawfully did remain on the premises of the Bus Terminal Restaurant of Richmond, Inc. after having been forbidden to do so' by the Assistant Manager. The young student was not willing to take it meekly; instead he was determined to fight against the punishment and the (small) fine imposed on him. Thus unfurled a historic legal battle, in 1958, against racial segregation in U.S.A. Here is how, much later in 2018, the then petitioner briefly recalled the incident to the Associated Press (AP):“She (the waitress) left and came back with the manager. The manager poked his finger in my face and said ‘N—-r, move, 'and I knew that I would not move and I refused to, and that was the case.” The majority 7 judge (with 2 dissentions) Supreme Court decision in the case [citation 364 US 454 (1960)] categorically outlawed racial segregation on public transportation, bus stations and other facilities linked to interstate travel in the United States of America. Thurgood Marshall, who represented the young law student in the above cited Supreme Court case, later became the first Black U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Had the cheeseburger and tea ordered by the young student then been served in the Richmond bus-station restaurant, perhaps we wouldn’t have had the emergence of the life-time Civil rights champion, Bruce Boynton, who, at the beginning of this week, succumbed after a ‘tremendous life well lived’ to his long-drawn battle with cancer at the age of 83. On the day of his mortal end, he was to have been honored by a courthouse in his native Selma being renamed after him. Boynton was a final-year law student at Howard University at the time of his arrest in 1958 and after the controversy he wasn’t allowed to practice law in Alabama even though he had passed the bar in 1960. Therefore he had to relocate to Tennessee and practice there until the Alabama bar finally admitted him in 1966. On being licensed by Alabama Bar, he became the first and only black County attorney in Alabama. He spent his entire career as a civil rights attorney. His relentless crusade against racial discrimination right from his student days till his end and the ‘Freedom ride of 1960s that he inspired through his legal battle (Boynton v. Virginia) against the Richmond bus station happening will ever be cherished by everyone in the sphere of civil rights in U.S.A. and those involved with human rights all over the world.

After the historic verdict on December 5, 1960 in Boynton V Virginia 1960- the first time since 1946 that the court got divided (7-2) on a matter of racial segregation- several groups of black and even white students, called ‘Freedom Riders’, set out on buses to travel the South and test whether the ruling in the case was being sincerely followed. But to their dismay, the “Freedom Riders” were arrested or attacked in Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina, and a bus was burned. It was appreciable that the then-President John F. Kennedy quickly diffused fire by ordering stricter enforcement of federal anti-discrimination laws and the decision of the Supreme Court.

Bruce Boynton was born on June 19, 1937, in Selma, Alabama, to Amelia and S.W. Boynton. His parents were also prominent members of the civil rights movement and have greatly contributed to the freedoms that many Blacks have today. From his very young age, apart from being intelligent, Boynton was a gentleman always displaying exemplary courage and honesty to speak his mind. Through his legal work, till his end, he was always helpful to people that others refused to help. He served as Alabama’s first Black special prosecutor and boldly prosecuted the Mayor of Beatrice, Alabama for attacking a BIack man.  While practicing in Selma, Boynton was beaten by Wilcox county sheriff and his Chief Deputy. Afterward, he had to have body guards comprising volunteers. Bruce Boynton’s life is a great lesson to every one about how one can make a difference. About the Richmond happening and Boynton’s actions it is often remarked as: “All he wanted was a cheeseburger, and he changed the course of history.”

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[The text of the judgment of Boynton V Commonwealth of Virginia can be accessed at: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/364/454#]