WASHINGTON - November 29 - In 1955 Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery bus boycott by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus for a white man. The 50th anniversary of the boycott is being commemorated this week in Montgomery, Alabama, with a series of events from museum exhibitions to a dramatic reenactment of the mass meeting where the African American community decided to boycott the city's buses.

Alliance public policy analyst Gabriel Sayegh will be in Alabama to take part in the events - not only to commemorate the importance of the boycott that kicked off the civil rights movement, but also to work with Alabama's New Bottom Line campaign, which advocates for criminal justice reform in the state. Over the course of the commemorative events, they will remind celebrants that though formal, legal segregation no longer exists, Jim Crow lives on in the form of the war on drugs and the prison system.

In Alabama, African Americans, who make up approximately 25 percent of the state's population, constitute 60 percent of the state's prison inmates. Nationwide, 74% percent of people sent to prison for drug offenses are black, though only 13% of blacks use illegal drugs - a rate of use comparable to that of whites and other groups.

“It’s important to honor and celebrate a key moment in American history when the black community of Montgomery organized against systemic racism and racial and economic violence,” said Sayegh. “But what has happened in the South—and the North, for that matter—since the Civil Rights revolution? Jim Crow laws have been refashioned into the war on drugs, and communities everywhere, black, brown, and white, are worse off for it. We are attending these celebrations to support our campaign partners and to lend our strength to the conviction that the struggle for civil and human rights continues.”

Alabama prisons now face a serious overcrowding problem. A recent report commissioned by the Drug Policy Alliance found that rapid growth in Alabama’s prison population - which currently ranks fifth nationally - was fueled by the incarceration of people convicted of non-violent offenses, primarily drug and property violations. African Americans have been hit especially hard by prison expansion and overcrowding.

The New Bottom Line Campaign, of which the Alliance is a part, is run by Reverend Kenny Glasgow of Dothan, Alabama, and Reverend Kobi Little of Selma, Alabama. The campaign seeks to end the war on drugs in Alabama and restore communities that have experienced devastation as a result of failed criminal justice policies. Members of the campaign will speak at various bus boycott commemorative events to communicate the message that sentencing reforms and a public health approach to drug policy in Alabama are essential to further advancement of civil rights.

###