Content Warning: The source material and this study guide discuss rape and anti-Black racism.

The notion of the “politics of respectability” appears throughout At the Dark End of the Street, often deeply impacting how activists planned their campaigns (76). To gain widespread support for their political causes, many civil rights activists often felt pressured to present a respectable image of themselves. The need to convince white Southerners of Black people’s humanity particularly influenced how activists chose their leaders. This appeal to respectability shaped the Montgomery bus boycott, limiting which episodes of violence activists were able to confront. As a result, certain injustices were ignored by activists such as E. D. Nixon and Jo Ann Robinson because the victims did not match the image that activists hoped to present to the media.

Claudette Colvin was one such individual whose plight was overlooked by Montgomery’s civil rights activists. Colvin was, in many ways, an ideal figure for civil rights activists to organize around. She was one of the first individuals to directly challenge segregation laws in court, and many Black women began boycotting the segregated Montgomery buses in support of her. Though Robinson hoped to plan a bigger boycott in response to Colvin’s abuse, E.