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