89 ENTER NOT GUILTY PLEAS TO BUS BOYCOTT INDICTMENT

Each of the 89 Negroes arraigned before Circuit Judge Eugene Carter today on grand jury charges of entering into an unlawful boycott against City Lines Bus Co. entered a plea of innocent.

A total of 16 cases - mostly "duplicate" indictments - were nolle prossed. The indictment against one defendant, Rev. A. W. Wilson, was nolle prossed because his appearance before the grand jury granted him immunity from prosecution.

Circuit Solicitor William F. Thetford called the defendants up group by group and then polled each defendant individually. There were 11 groups for each of the 11 grand jury indictments.

Included in the first indictment group were Rev. Martin Luther King, 27 years-old pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and acknowledged as the leading spokesman of the boycott movement; Rev. L. R. Bennett, pastor of the Mt. Zion AME Church on St.; E. D. Nixon, former state president of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, and Rev. Edgar M. French, pastor of the Hilliard Chapel AME Zion Church.

10 NOT ARRESTED

Ten indictments are out standing at present, according to Circuit Clerk John Matthews. When these are returned, it will raise the total to 99 indicted in the boycott dispute.

Among the last to be arraigned today were Rosa Parks and Rev Ralph D. Abernathy, chairman of public relations and negotiation committee for the bus boycott.

The seven AMEZ ministers arraigned today were represented by Dr. C. Eubank Tucker, a Louisville, Ky., attorney who also is presiding elder of the Indianapolis-Evansville District of the AMEZ Church.

They were Revs. French, S. S. Seay, L. R. Bennett, W. J. Powell, J. H. Cherry, A. W. Murphy and J. W. Hayes.

Negro Attys. Fred D. Gray and Charles D. Langford would say only that they were representing a "substantial number" of the defendants.

Judge Carter set the week of March 19th for trial of all of the defendants and granted them one week in which to file written demurrers against the indictments.

At the outset, Negro defendants and spectators crowed the corridors of the Montgomery County Courthouse and bailiffs were instructed to admit only defendants and card-carrying newsmen into the courtroom. The doors later were thrown open to the public. However, few white spectators appeared and the courtroom was only some three-fourth full.

ROOM SEGREGATED

Several Negro newsmen who attempted to sit in the white portion of the segregated courtroom were instructed to move back to the Jim Crow section.

There were Negro newsmen representing the Afro-American in Baltimore, Md., the St. Louis Argus and one representing the Manchester (England) Guardian as well as his American paper.

Rev. J. H. Cherry was among those who were called upon more than one occasion. Two of his cases were nolle prossed.

Members of the second indictment group arraigned were Thomas Gray, brother of Atty. Fred Gray, Rev. J. W. Hayes, Rev. W. J. Pewell and Rev. R. James Glasco.

The arraignment began shortly after 9:30 a.m., preceded in an orderly fashion and was finished at 10:10 a.m.

NO PHOTOGRAPHS

Judge Carter instructed photographers not to take pictures inside the courtroom

Those in the third indictment group were Lonnie Charles Walker, Mose Watley Richburg, Edward Martin Williams, Tom Parks, Albert Carlton, William H. Johnson, J. C. Smith, Eddie Lee Posey, E. H. Ligon, Addie James Hamilton, Solomon S. Seay, Walter Moss, Huestis James Palmer, Alberta Judkins James, Arthur Murphy, Jimmie Gamble, Mose Bishop and Cora L. McHaney.

Another group was composed of Freddie Morris, John H. Garrison, Henry Williams, Mathew Kennedy, Lottie Green Varner, Simon Peter McBryde and Burl Mack Averhart.

Eight defendants were in the next group: Alfred Ellis, Eli Judkins, Sitveria Heard, Walter S. Smith, Mose Williams Jones, George Henderson, Mentha H. Johnson and Lewis Christburg.

Another group included John Green Hill, Osborne C. Chambliss, Fred Lee Davis, August McHaney and Booker T. Holmes.

The last group called was the largest, with 20 persons pleading not guilty as Thetford called their names Rosa Parks whose arrest over a bus seating dispute touched off the boycott, was included in the

Group.

Others were Rev. R. D. Abernathy of the First Negro Baptist Church, a leading spokesman for the Negroes, and Jo Ann Robinson, a 39-year-old instructor at the Alabama State College for Negroes.

The rest were B. D. Lambert, J. N. King, R. W. Hilson, R. B. Binion, P. Conley, H. H. Johnson, C. W. Lee, Irene A. West, W. F. Alford, Ronald Young, Eurette F. Adair, Jimmie Lowe, J. W. Bonner, M. C. Cleveland, Ida M. Caldwell, P. M. Blair and J. E. Pierce.

In Grand Jury indictment 209, six persons were listed. They were: Frank Leon Taylor, Jimmie Roy McClain, Calvin Varner, Robert Johnson, Isiah Fergerson and Hillman H. Hubbard.

The next indictment named George Henry Jordan, Henry A. McLain, Sam Burnett and Frank Powell, Jr.

Only two were listed in indictment 211. They were George Hill and Arthur Bibbin.

Indictment 212 named 10 Negroes, including the sister of Charles D. Langford, one of the attorneys for the defendants. They were: James Theodore Primus, Willie James Kemp, John Henry Baker, Audrey Belle Langford, Louis Boswell, Eddie Bradford, Wesley S. Tolbert, Benjamin James Simms, Aaron Hoffman, Pastor of the Shiloh Baptist Church and Charley Polk.