Nourishing the Movement: Georgia Gilmore’s Club from Nowhere During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1956

1 online resource (70 pages) : PDF

2022

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

On December 1, 1955, news of the arrest of Rosa Parks swept through the city of Montgomery. Though not the first African American to challenge segregated seating on public transportation, Parks' arrest sparked a carefully organized thirteen-month protest of buses in the city. The carpool system enacted by the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) proved highly effective in maintaining the boycott. However, the costs associated with the carpool and propelling the boycott led to the creation of local fundraising entities such as Georgia Gilmore's Club from Nowhere. Georgia Gilmore founded the Club from Nowhere, an organization of black working-class women that sold food to raise money for the Montgomery Improvement Association. In 1956, Gilmore started a home restaurant that served as a safe meeting spot for civil rights leaders. This research examines Georgia Gilmore and other Black domestic workers through the framework of food studies and recent literature on the civil rights movement. Such a merging of fields reveals how black women during the Civil Rights Movement utilized food as a tool of resistance that fostered and sustained activism. Through a case study of Gilmore and her club, this paper investigates the dynamics of class, gender, and food politics and their effects on black-working class mobilization in 1950s Montgomery. Georgia Gilmore and the Club from Nowhere did more than simply fill the stomachs of their patrons. These women helped nourish one of the most pivotal events in the Civil Rights Movement.

masters theses

Ethnicity--Study and teaching
African Americans--Study and teaching
History

M.A.

African American Foodways
Civil Rights Movement
Food Studies
Georgia Gilmore
Montgomery
Montgomery Bus Boycott

History

Cox, Karen

Shull, Kristina
Dupre, Dan

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2022.

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