This economic dimension of segregation is worth examining in Colvin’s context. Her family had limited financial resources. Her mother worked in white households, as many Black women in Montgomery did — cleaning, cooking, caring for white families’ children while Black families’ own domestic arrangements had to be managed with whatever resources remained. The bus was not an option for them; it was a necessity. The cost of the fare was real and felt.
The bus boycott’s economic impact on the Montgomery City Lines was significant precisely because Black ridership was so economically essential to the company’s operation. The community that was being treated as second-class citizens was also the community whose patronage kept the buses running. The boycott made this visible in the most concrete possible way: when Black riders stayed off the buses, the company lost most of its revenue.
This is one of the often-underemphasized lessons of the boycott. The community that was being oppressed by the bus system was also the community that was economically sustaining the bus system. The leverage that made the boycott effective was the same leverage that the community had always had; they had simply not previously exercised it collectively and deliberately.
The women who organized the WPC and who prepared the boycott’s logistical infrastructure understood this. They had been watching the economics of the bus system for years. They knew how dependent the company’s revenues were on Black ridership. They had calculated what a sustained collective refusal to ride would cost the company.