The Club From Nowhere

The story of Georgia Gilmore

 

 

 

 

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Georgia Gilmore adjusts her hat for photographers in 1956 during

the bus boycott trial of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery,

Ala. She testified: "When you pay your fare and they count the money,

they don't know the Negro money from white money." AP

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In order to bring Georgia to life, we have written a short biography of her life in the first person.

 

The day started as usual. I cooked at the National Lunch Company. After a long hard day, I was looking forward to getting home, making dinner and enjoying my family.

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That Friday afternoon in October 1955, I waited at the bus stop just like every day for the bus to come and take me back home, far from the noise of the city. 

 

After I had paid my fare and was about to go take a seat in the back, the driver started shouting at me for using the front door instead of the back. I had gone too many times through the humiliating process of taking the bus in Jim Crow South, paying in the front with a walk of shame to the back. I looked at him and said, “I already paid my fare, I don’t see why I should get off.” I was tired and just wanted to go sit, but he was not going to let me do that. Furious and powerless, I wanted to argue but instead I complied. You see, back then you could get arrested just for that.

 

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A bus driver is all alone as his empty bus moves through downtown Montgomery, Ala., in April 1956 during the boycott. Georgia Gilmore's cooking helped fund an alternative system of transportation that arose for the city's African-Americans during the boycott. Horace Cort/AP

 

 

I was born on February 5th, 1920, in Montgomery. My six siblings and I grew up on a small family farm with cows, hogs, and chickens. Growing up in Montgomery, we were raised to keep our heads down and survive.

 

I got off the bus and was on my way to the back door when the door closed and the bus drove away. This was not the first time I faced racism but right here and then I, Georgia Gilmore, daughter of Janie C. Gilmore and Taylor Burns, vowed never to take the bus ever again. 

 

Two months later, on December 1st, another upstanding Black woman was arrested on the bus and jailed for refusing to give up her seat for a white person to sit. She was the latest of many arrests. Before her, on March 2nd, Claudette Colvin, a fifteen-year-old high school student, was arrested. Same thing again in October of 1955 with Mary Louise Smith, eighteen years old. But when Rosa Parks was arrested, that was one too many. Enough was enough: the Montgomery bus system was entirely relying on us domestic workers, cooks like me, maids, nannies, seamstresses like Rosa Parks. We, day in and out, took abuse from passengers and bus drivers. We had rights and were not going to bow our heads any more. 

 

I had already been boycotting the buses for months when I saw the circulating flyer from The Women Political Council (WPC) of Montgomery for a community meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church on Monday December 5th. Even though I was not sure the meeting would be well attended, I still went and to my surprise and delight, I was one of nearly 5,000 who showed up in support of taking action -- and I was part of it alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I felt like something big was about to happen and change was coming. That meeting launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

 

Some of us walked for miles to go to work if we weren’t fired for participating in the boycott, and we organized alternative transportation for those who could not walk or participate for economic reasons or for discretion, even if they agreed and supported the boycott, with carpooling routes.

 

How could I help? What could I do to support my community? I could only use what I do best to help: cooking. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Later in life, Gilmore started a catering business and home restaurant. While black people and white people usually ate in separate spaces, “they elbowed together in Gilmore’s kitchen,” the food historian John T. Edge wrote in the book “The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South” (2017). The Montgomery Advertiser

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I knew how to cook (everyone in Montgomery from households to lunch facilities wanted to taste my cooking!) and be a midwife. To support the carpooling clubs, we needed to pay for gas, insurance, upkeep of the cars, etc. I couldn’t fail. Failing meant going back to taking the bus. 

 

The first thing was to organize the women both from the east and west side of Montgomery. We had to be able to act and move freely despite the police watch. I formed the “Club From Nowhere”, a clandestine group of women cooking fried chicken or fish, pork chops, green beans, and baked goods (potato or peach pies, poundcakes) that we sold from our homes and gave the money to support our alternative transportation.

 

We drew support from so many different communities around Montgomery. This was the South. Even from white allies, who could discretely support us because they could write a check to “The Club From Nowhere” and not have to disclose who the recipient was. If we were in trouble or questioned for carrying so much cash, we could honestly answer “from selling goods”, or even “from Nowhere”. 

 

When they arrested Dr. King and 100 others for violating Alabama’s anti-boycott laws, I shared my story and testified as to why bus segregation needed to stop. My money is the same as white money once I pay my fare. For that, I was fired from the National Lunch Company. We did not give up and fed and funded the boycott for 381 days. On December 20th, 1956, Dr. King called the end of the boycott after The U.S. Supreme Court struck down segregation laws on public buses on Nov.13th, 1956. We were essential to the Civil Rights Movement. I was so proud to be a part of the first massive, influential public demonstration. We had accomplished what we thought was impossible to overcome in Montgomery. 

 

I had my fair share of mockeries in the paper for my size, but they could not dim my light because I had love at home. I am a smart, quick-witted, industrious, motherly woman who took the best advice that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave me: “All these years you’ve worked for somebody else, now it’s time you worked for yourself.” I never worked for anyone else again. I started my own home restaurant and catering business. Even during segregation, both Black and white elbowed together to enjoy. Dr. King, my neighbors, Sam Cooke, and Aretha Franklin were regulars and even Lyndon B. Johnson and Robert F. Kennedy enjoyed my dishes.

 

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Georgia Gilmore in 1978 in Montgomery, Ala. The Montgomery Advertiser

 

That was only the beginning for me. I persisted. There was so much more hate to counter. In December 1958, I joined a class-action lawsuit to desegregate Montgomery’s public parks. It took us 16 years, but we did it. In 1974 the Supreme Court ruled the practice unconstitutional. 

 

I, Georgia Gilmore, am leaving you on this day of March 3rd, 1990 at age 70, doing what I loved the most: cooking. I cooked my most famous macaroni and cheese and fried chicken one last time for the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the March from Selma to Montgomery.

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Read More!

 

• The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South by John T. Edge (2017).

 

•  “When I paid my fare and they got the money, they don’t know Negro money from white money,” Georgia testified.

 

• The American Black History – Georgia Gilmore 

 

• Georgia in the New York Times’ Overlooked series.

 

• Southern Foodways collaborated with the Montgomery Advertiser to celebrate Georgia’s life, and make amends for how she’d been represented in the Advertiser’s pages. It’s a beautiful read by another Black woman we encourage you to enjoy!

 

• PBS series “Eyes on the Prize” has captured interviews with members of the Alabama civil rights movements, and you can find Georgia’s here: INTERVIEW 1 (1979) | INTERVIEW 2 (1986)

 

• Councilman Gilmore was gracious enough to share Georgia’s Legendary Sweet Tea recipe so we can raise a glass to her.

 

• Listen in to the personal accounts of many who had the pleasure of eating in Ms. Georgia’s kitchen, including her son, Montgomery City Councilman Mark Gilmore, in NPR’s “The Kitchen of a Civil Rights Hero."

 

• Discover more “Selfless Servant Leadership of the African-American Women of the Civil Rights Movement.”