Stillman College and Tuscaloosa Bus Boycotts

This second issue of the third volume of the SNCC publication highlights the attack on Stillman College students who were protesting discriminatory practices on city bus system in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

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Transcription:

A  mob of white men chased and caught a car full of Stillman college students after, beat and kicked them and sprayed a “burning gas” on them.

The driver of the car, William A. Jones, a student Stillman College, was charged with “reckless driving”. Two other students were also arrested on a city bus after a white man began hitting them, according to Samuel A. Pitts, Jr.

Jones had picked up a number of students who were forced off a city bus after they tried to take empty front seats. As his car puled away from the bus stop, a mob took chase, caught his car, kicked and beat the students, slapped one college coed, and sprayed “some type of burning gas” into the car.

Four girls has been arrested on “disorderly conduct” charges on the city busses [sic] on May 5, when they refused to obey a bus driver’s order to move to the rear when white people boarded a bus filled with Negroes.

Source: "Stillman Students Beaten, Gassed," The Student Voice 3, no. 2 (June, 1962), 2.