ABSTRACT
Not only could blacks not ride in the front of the bus, they lived their entire lives apart from whites. Blacks were born in separate hospitals, attended separate, inferior schools, and were buried in separate cemeteries. Blacks asked in vain for the city to provide adequate fire and police protection, pave the streets, extend the sewer lines, set aside playgrounds, and pick up garbage regularly in their neighborhoods. With little education and jobs limited to domestics and laborers, the median income of blacks was half that of whites. This poverty explains why blacks rode the buses so frequently.
