Buses operated by Montgomery City Lines Inc., boycotted by Negroes for nearly five months, abandoned the traditional segregation of white and Negro passengers in the wake of yesterday's Supreme Court ruling.

The City Commission issued a statement early this afternoon saying it does not consider the Supreme Court decision as nullifying "Alabama laws or city ordinances by which we are governed.

"We therefore," the brief statement said, "expect the buys company and all other persons to abide by all existing laws and ordinances."

FEW NEGROES ON BUSES

Relatively few Negroes patronized buses this morning - and all that were observed continued to occupy rear seats, in spite of the court's order.

On another front, C. C. (Jack) Owens, president of the Alabama Public Service Commission, sent a telegram to National City Lines of Chicago, parent firm of the local bus company, demanding that the integration order on buses here be withdrawn. He also directed all public carriers in the state to "strictly adhere to all present existing segregation laws in our state or suffer the consequences."

Owens wired President Roy Fitzgerald of National City Lines that "I hereby defy the ruling handed down by the U. S. Supreme Court."

STATE LAW STANDS

"Alabama state law requiring segregation of the races on buses still stands. I demand that you withdraw your order approving integration on your buses in Montgomery." The telegram stated.

In Chicago National Lines Vice president B. W. Franklin told the Associated Press: "We are not going to enforce segregation."

The Commission's statement came after Police Commissioner Clyde Sellers vowed to arrest anybody who violates city segregation ordinances.

"I'll be responsible for any arrest and I'll give the direct orders for those arrests. As for as I'm concerned this damn thing (the ruling) applies to South Carolina only. Until they tell us in this suit filed here that our segregation laws are no longer in effect, I'm going to enforce all city laws to maintain segregation." Sellers said.

Meanwhile, a leader of the Negro bus boycott issued a statement saying "there will be no change in our present position immediately."

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., said, "rumors that we are to have a mass meeting tonight are false. We will hold a regular mass meeting Thursday night at the day Street Baptist Church," he said in a statement issued through Negro Atty. Fred D. Gray.

"In view of the current happenings, there will no change in our present position immediately," the statement said.

King was speaking as president of the Montgomery Improvement Assn., organization formed to support the boycott.

Gray indicated that the MIA would make an effort to confer with City Bus Lines Manage J. H. Bagley, although he did not reveal the nature of such a conference.

King, who was convicted of violating Alabama's anti-boycott law for his part in the bus protest, said he did not believe news of the end of segregation had spread enough to bring many Negroes back to riding the buses this morning.

City officials had insisted yesterday afternoon that segregation would be maintained despite the high court's ruling.

R. C. Mills, assistant superintendent of transportation for Montgomery City Lines, said "everything is going along fine. We aren't expecting any trouble from our Negroes here. If we have any trouble it will be from outside agitation."

The company posted a notice last night saying it would comply with the U. S. Supreme Court ruling holding bus segregation unconstitutional.

NO TROUGL EXPECTED

"Everything's working out fine. "We don't expect any trouble." Mills said.

Miller said the company will continue to provide separate school buses for white and Negro children because the routing of the buses to white and Negro schools. "automatically segregates them."

The school buses operate on the morning and afternoon on special routes, hauling only school children.

The first buses to roll under the traditional-smashing edict did not begin operating until after 5 a.m. Most of the drivers on the early shift first learned of the desegregation order when they reported to work at dawn.

BUS LINES IN MIDDLE

The order to stop assigning seats according to race put the bus company squarely in the middle between the Supreme Court ruling and a stern warning earlier yesterday from Montgomery Mayor W. A. Gayle to continue strict racial segregation.

The directive bore the name of bus company Manager J. H. Bagley, who was unavailable for comment today.

Before the desegregation order was posted, Gayle hinted legal action might be taken if bus officials disregarded state and city laws requiring segregation. He could not be reached immediately today for comment on what steps if any were planned now that the company has done away with racially separate seating requirements.

King, pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, predicted Negroes would continue to refuse to ride the buses until a mass meeting is held for them to decide if their demands have been satisfactorily met.

He said the bus company's action would seem to satisfy demands for unsegregated seating and courtesy to Negro patrons from bus drivers. But King pointed out that the boycotters have also asked that Negro drivers be employed on predominately Negro routes.

'NO CHANGE" - GAYLE

When the Supreme Court ruling was announced yesterday, Mayor Gayle emphasized there would be "no change" in the City Commission's policy. "We will do everything in our power to maintain segregation on city buses."

"We're going to enforce the state and city ordinances just as we have been doing." Gayle added, "and we expect the bus company to continue to abide by these laws."

Gayle and Commissioners Sellers and Frank Parks joined the pro-white Montgomery Citizens Council last December after initial efforts to end the Negro bus boycott proved unsuccessful.

The boycott has been in rigid effect since last Dec. 5. When Rosa Parks, a Negro seamstress, was fined $14 in police court because she refused to move to the back of a bus.

90 NEGROES INDICTED

A Montgomery County Grand Jury indicted 90 Negro leaders about three months ago for violating Alabama's anti-boycott law. King, the first and only Negro tried thus far was convicted and has appealed a $500 fine.

The young minister, said the MIA's "strategy committee" would meet this afternoon to discuss the desegregation decree. Recommendations will be made to the group's executive board, he explained, and the question of ending the boycott would be submitted to the vote at a mass meeting of Negroes.

The bus company's typewritten notice to its employes that separation of the races would no longer be required became known late last night

The notice said:

"We have been advised that today the Supreme Court of the United States rendered a decision the effect of which is to hold unconstitutional segregation of the races on buses.

"Under the circumstances, the company has no choice except to discontinue the practice of segregation of passengers on account of race and drivers will no longer assign seats to passengers by reason of their race."

SUBSIDIARY OF CHICAGO LINE

The local company is a subsidiary of National City Lines, Inc., of Chicago, which operates bus franchises in more than 30 cities throughout the nation.

The mass refusal of Negroes to ride the Montgomery buses has forced the company to raise its rates 50 per cent and drastically curtail operations. It has been estimated that 95 per cent of the Negro customers, who once made up about 75 per cent of the total patronage, have stopped riding buses.

Early in the boycott, officials of both the Montgomery affiliate and the parent firm issued statements saying the company had no choice but to maintain segregated seating because of the state law.

The order last night to integrate came as a surprise since the Supreme Court ruling did not directly affect buses in Alabama. No action was expected here until at least May 11 when a three-judge panel is scheduled to hear a federal court suit attacking state and city bus segregation laws as unconstitutional.

The suit was filed by four Montgomery Negro women as an outgrowth of the boycott.