Thelma Glass

Who is Thelma Glass?

Thelma Glass was an American civil rights activist, noted for helping to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955, and a professor of geography.

Glass was born Thelma McWilliams in Mobile, Alabama, to a hotel cook and homemaker. She graduated from Dunbar High School and attended Alabama State University and Columbia University.

In 1955, after Rosa Parks' arrest, Glass and the other members of the Women's Political Council, called for a boycott of the Montgomery bus system, thus beginning the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a key action in the Civil Rights Movement. Glass had joined the organization in 1947 and in 1955 was its secretary. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. joined in the protests as well and worked with her. She passed out fliers, alerted the community, and urged passengers to walk or car-pool. Soon she noticed every bus that went by was empty of passengers. Although there was sometimes violent retaliation, the boycott continued and eventually the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on buses was unconstitutional and the boycott ended.

She married Arthur Glass in 1942, and both she taught geography at Alabama State University, where her husband was also a professor.