Dorothy Posey & Inell Johnson

By Erin Elaine Mosely
Montgomery Advertiser

Dorothy Posey and her late husband, Eddie, owned a parking lot that was used as a carpool meeting place during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. (Mickey Welsh, Montgomery Advertiser)

Dorothy Posey motioned Ester Duncan to a sink so she could shampoo her hair. Posey lathered shampoo in Duncan's hair and massaged her scalp. Her hands worked back and forth like they have done for the 60-plus years Posey has been in the cosmetology business.

And for Posey, life is analogous to business: You figure out what you love to do and find a way to make money from it.

It comes as little surprise that during the year Montgomery's black residents boycotted the then-segregated buses, Posey viewed the yearlong protest as a well-organized and well-executed plan.

"So, what do you want to know about it?" asked Posey matter-of-factly, seated in her chair with her legs crossed at Dorothy's Beauty Salon on Dexter Avenue. "It went smooth, and everyone tried to help someone get seated in a car."

Posey and her late husband, Eddie, owned a parking lot in downtown Montgomery. The business venture made a considerable amount of money for them but neither she nor her husband knew how valuable the parking lot would become.

After Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man, the action that sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, organizers looked for ways black people could commute without using public transportation. Carpools were organized to give people who did not have vehicles a mode of transportation.

"They came to my husband and asked if they can use his parking lot and he said, 'Yes,'" said Posey, 82. "I felt like it was good because I'm black and I knew if I needed to get to work I wanted to know how I would get to work.

Posey heard about Parks and the pending boycott in her shop.

"I opened my beauty salon on Monroe Street," she said. "(I heard through) word of mouth that she was sitting on the bus and asked to move back and give up her seat to a white man. It was just in the air. Everybody knew about it."

She does not remember specific dates, years or single events, but Posey does recall the excitement of the movement and the hustle and bustle of the "crowded" lot.

"A lot of people that didn't have cars went and bought cars," she said. "They would drive in, pick up passengers, load the car up, come on out and let other people come in. It was exciting because people were cooperating and getting people to work, and then they came back and did it again in the afternoon."

While Posey's parking lot was used for carpools, Inell Johnson used her car to pick up people. Although she did not take part in the orchestrated pick ups and drop offs, Johnson said she tried to help out anyway she could.

"It brought us closer to help each other," she said. "It really brought about more love - especially for the ones that took part. We were singing and praying together. I tell you the truth between the races it brought us closer. In fact, we were closer then than we are now."

Johnson attended the mass meetings held in Montgomery after the boycott was underway. At a meeting at First Baptist Church, she planned only to stay for a little while because her sister worried for her safety.

"One of the ushers told me, 'Mrs. Johnson I saved a seat for you in the choir stand," Johnson said. "I told her I didn't need it because I wasn't planning on staying. When we got ready to leave the national guardsmen standing outside said, 'Get back in there!' and asked the usher, 'Do you still have that seat?'"

Johnson can laugh at those memories now because she is a survivor. But, it was no laughing matter that night when phone lines were cut, she and others were held captive in the church until sunrise, and U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy had to federalize the national guard to keep them from harming the people they were supposed to protect.

Johnson had a "Rosa Parks" moment on a city bus in those segregated times. She and other black passengers were riding in their section when a white man boarded the bus.

"He said, 'Motorman get those n----- back!'," said Johnson, her voice elevated to holler. "The driver just kept looking forward. I didn't move. I was sitting in my section. Nobody moved. When he realized nothing was going to happen he went on sat down."

When Posey talks about the protest and the camaraderie it brought among black people and the cooperation it took to succeed, Posey is calm and reserved. But she becomes impassioned and somewhat annoyed at the lack of progress in achieving the goal of preserving a piece of the boycott's history.

Posey said she's tried to get a historical marker placed at the site of the old parking lot.

"I think it stood for a lot and meant a lot," she said. "People needed a place to meet up to get where they wanted to go and working was very important.

"I talked around to about four people," Posey said. "They said, 'Oh yeah!' That should have been there. They wanted to get the placard and have it for this anniversary for the bus protest, but I haven't heard anything."

For Posey, the biggest disappointment to come after the protest was she had to close the parking lot.

"I educated three children with (profits from the parking lot)," she said. "When the boycott was over we had to let go of the business. No more parking lot."

But, Posey and her husband had no regrets about lending their business for a key role in history.

"We stuck together and cooperated," said Posey about the black community. "A lot of them, especially young people, don't know about the parking lot, where it is or what it looked like. It makes me feel sad. I feel they should know more about it. More should be said about it."

The sacrifices that black people made during the protest are well documented. Walking to work. Walking home. Quitting or losing jobs. Giving or getting rides. So, would the protest have been successful without the Posey's parking lot?

To that question, Posey said she doesn't know. "God would have found a way," she said.