Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955 for refusing to give her bus seat to a white man. On December 5th she was tried and found guilty of having violated the segregation laws of Alabama. That same day the first mass meeting of the bus boycott was held at the Holt Street Baptist Church where several thousand people gathered. Martin Luther King Jr., who had been elected president of the newly found Montgomery Improvement Association that would direct the bus boycott delivered a rousing speech and the people voted to continue the one-day bus boycott. Uriah J. Fields was elected to serve as secretary of the MIA. On December 8th the letter below was sent to the National City Lines, Inc., of Chicago, IL., owner of buses operating in Montgomery:

This letter was wired to National City Lines in Chicago, owner of Montgomery buses. National City Lines vice president Kenneth E. Totten arrived in Montgomery the next week.

8 December 1955
Montgomery, Ala.
To: The National City Lines, Inc.
616 South Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill

Over a period of years the Negro passengers on the Montgomery City Lines, Inc. have been subjected to humiliation, threats, intimidation, and death through bus driver action.
The Negro has been inconvenienced in the use of the city bus lines by the operators in all instances in which the bus has been crowded. He has been forced to give up his seat if a white person has been standing.
Repeated conferences with the bus officials have met with failure. Today a meeting was held with Mr. J. H. Bagley and Attorney Jack Crenshaw as representatives of the bus company, and Mayor W. A. Gayle and Associate Commissioners Frank Parks and Clyde Sellers. At which time as an attempt to end the Monday through Thursday protest, the following three proposals were made:

1. Courteous treatment by bus drivers.
2. Seating of Negro passengers from rear to front of bus and white passengers from front to rear on "first-come-first-serve basis with no seats reserved for any race.
3. Employment of Negro bus operators in predominantly Negro residential sections.

The above proposals, and the resolutions which will follow, were drafted and adopted in a mass meeting of more than 5,000 regular bus riders. These proposals were denied in the meeting with the city officials and representatives of the bus company. Since 44 percent of the city population is Negro, and since 75 percent of the bus riders are Negro, we urge you to send a representative to Montgomery to arbitrate.

The Montgomery Improvement Association
The Rev. M. L. King, President
The Rev. U. J. Fields. Secretary

Uriah J. Fields (Electronic mail, February 12, 2015)