Edgar Nixon

Edgar Daniel Nixon (July 12, 1899 – February 25, 1987) was an American civil rights leader and union organizer in Alabama who played a crucial role in organizing the landmark Montgomery bus boycott there in 1955. The boycott highlighted the issues of segregation in the South, was upheld for more than a year by black residents, and nearly brought the city-owned bus system to bankruptcy. It ended in December 1956, after the United States Supreme Court ruled in the related case, Browder v. Gayle, that the local and state laws were unconstitutional, and ordered the state to end bus segregation.

A longtime organizer and activist, Nixon was president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Montgomery Welfare League, and the Montgomery Voters League. At the time, Nixon already led the Montgomery branch of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union, known as the Pullman Porters Union, which he had helped organize.

Martin Luther King Jr. described Nixon as "one of the chief voices of the Negro community in the area of civil rights," and "a symbol of the hopes and aspirations of the long oppressed people of the State of Alabama."

After working in a train station baggage room, Nixon rose to become a Pullman car porter, which was a well-respected position with good pay. He was able to travel around the country and worked steadily. He worked with them until 1964. In 1928, he joined the new union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, helping organize its branch in Montgomery. He also served as its president for many years. She died in 1934. They had a son, Edgar Daniel Nixon Jr. (1928–2011), who became an actor known by the stage name of Nick LaTour. Nixon later remarried, to Arlet Campbell, in Florida. She was with him during many of the civil rights events. Nixon organized an event on June 12, 1944, in which up to 750 African Americans marched to the Montgomery County courthouse and attempted to register to vote, to protest Madison's disbarment over the voter registration campaign he conducted as part of this organization. Nixon himself gained voter registration in 1945.

Nixon was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), becoming president of the Montgomery chapter in 1945 and, in 1947, president of the state organization.

In 1954, he was the first black person to run for a seat on the county Democratic Executive Committee. When she asked, "Well, what about me?", he replied, "I need a secretary and you are a good one."

Nixon shared his labor and civil rights contacts with the MIA, organizing financial and other resources to help manage and support the boycott. These were critical to its success. On November 13, 1956, while a Montgomery court hearing where Montgomery city attorneys wished to prove that the car pool boycotters used as a means of transportation was a form of unlicensed public transportation was underway, the US Supreme Court upheld the District Court's ruling. On December 17, 1956, the Supreme Court rejected appeals by the city and state to reconsider its ruling.

After the boycott Nixon's relationship with the MIA was contentious. He frequently had sharp disagreements with others in the group and competed for leadership. He expressed resentment that King and Abernathy had received most of the credit for the boycott, as opposed to the local activists who had already spent years organizing against racism. However, King admired Nixon, describing him as "one of the chief voices of the Negro community in the area of civil rights," and "a symbol of the hopes and aspirations of the long oppressed people of the State of Alabama."

Awards and honors In 1985, Nixon received the Walter White Award from the NAACP. In 1986, a year before his death, Nixon's house in Montgomery was placed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage, in recognition of his leadership in the state. Edgar D. Nixon Elementary School, on Edgar D. Nixon Avenue in Montgomery, is named after him.