E.D. Nixon was a Pullman porter and civil rights leader who worked with Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to initiate the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Born on July 12, 1899, in Lowndes County, Alabama, E.D. Nixon went on to work as a Pullman porter, later becoming a community activist in Montgomery with leadership positions in the NAACP and the Voters League. He was key in bailing Rosa Parks out of jail and positioning her case to spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott, recruiting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as well. Nixon died on February 25, 1987.
Nixon was a shrewd strategist and promised one year that he would mobilize African-American votes to support a police commissioner candidate in exchange for black officers being hired on the force. Nixon also ran for county office in 1954, the same year he was chosen as the Alabama Journal‘s Man of the Year; he lost the election only by a slim margin.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted for more than 380 days, with the African-American community enduring a host of travails that included harassment and violent attacks. Nixon’s home was firebombed two days after King’s, and he was indicted for violating a state anti-boycott statute. Yet the boycott persevered and the city was eventually forced to lift its bus segregation laws.
E.D. Nixon died in Montgomery on February 25, 1987, at the age of 87.
