TO THE CHAPTER INVISIBLE
By Aaron Williams Bruce C. Boynton 1937–2020 Civil Rights Figure (Freedom Riders) I n 2016, Bruce C. Boynton recalled in Montgomery (AL) Advertiser newspaper of his story of stopping in Richmond, VA bus terminal while traveling via interstate bus placed him in the middle of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and a seminal figure who inspired the actions of the Freedom Riders. “I was hungry and just wanted a cheeseburger and a cup of hot tea on that cold night. I also pointed out that, as an American citizen, I was entitled
stopped at a rest stop in Richmond, VA. Boynton entered the facilities to eat. After observing the deplor- able and unsanitary conditions of the café segregated for blacks, Boynton decided to take a seat in the restau- rant's whites-only section. Although federal laws banned the segregation of these public spaces in interstate travel, many remained separated by race across the South. After ordering a meal, he was approached by the manager, who used a racial slur and told him to leave the premises. Boynton refused, was arrested and subsequently convicted of trespassing. Boynton appealed the decision, which led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case. The nation’s leading civil rights attorney of the day, Thurgood Marshall, was Boynton’s attorney. In a 7-2 decision, the 1960 landmark Supreme Court upheld the federal prohibitions established in the 1946 Morgan v. Virginia ruling against segregation on interstate buses, trains, and other forms of transpor- tation. The court ruled the law applied to all facilities that served its passengers. The following year, numerous blacks and whites personally sought to verify whether the southern states adhered to the Boyn- ton v. Virginia ruling since they did not fol- low the previous decision. These activists came to be known as the ‘Freedom Riders’ and their trips on commercial buses to ‘whites-only’ restrooms, waiting rooms, and lunch counters at bus stations in the Jim Crow South. State and local police officers and angry mobs violently attacked the ‘Freedom Riders.’ After several months of protests that garnered international attention and hundreds of supporters, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued
regulations that prohibited segregation in interstate transit terminals.
Boynton graduated from Howard Univer- sity Law School in 1958. The Alabama bar denied Boynton a law license for six years while it investigated the case's circumstances. Boynton started con- sequently started his law practice in Chattanooga, TN, before in 1965, finally admitted to the Alabama bar. Boyn- ton opened his law practice for years in Selma before opening a practice in Washington, DC. Later in life, he left Washington and returned to Selma. Brother Bruce C. Boynton is preceded by his parents and first wife, Alice Cutler. He survived by wife Betty Boynton, daughter Carver, Aimie Emma Meredith, four grandchildren, adopted siblings Germain Bowser and Sharon Seay, and a host of relatives, friends, and clients. The Dallas (AL) County Commission voted to rename an annex of the Dallas County Courthouse in Selma, AL, in honor of Boynton and another promi- nent Black Selma attorney, J.L. Chestnut Jr.
to get that burger and tea.” Alabama attorney and civil rights figure Brother Bruce C. Boynton (Alpha Delta 1955) entered the Chapter Invisible on Mr. Boynton died on November 23, 2020, at 83 due to cancer. Named after George Carver Washing- ton, Bruce Carver Boynton was born in Selma, AL, on June 19, 1937. His mother, Amelia (née Platts) Boynton, was an author and renowned civil rights activist along with his father, Samuel Boynton. Boynton’s mother helped organize the famous 1965 voting rights march known as Bloody Sunday, in which she was beaten by Alabama state troopers as protesters tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. After graduating at age 14 from Selma’s R.B. Hudson High School, Boynton earned an undergraduate degree at his- toric Fisk University in Nashville, TN. Boynton attended Howard University Law School. A week before Christmas of 1958, third-year Howard University Law student Boynton found himself thrust into the center of a civil rights issue that spurred the movement's ef- forts to desegregate interstate bus lines. While traveling from Washington, D.C., to visit his family in Selma, AL, his bus
66 | SPRING 2021 ♦ THE JOURNAL
Publishing achievement since 1914
Made with FlippingBook Digital Publishing Software