“Living under the Tension” 135    lander Folk School in Tennessee with Rosa Parks, Robert Graetz, and Al- abama State College professor J. E. Pierce, school director Myles Horton noted that during 1955 he had received letters from Nixon and Aubrey Williams saying “that the Negroes in Montgomery didn’t do anything.”42 The belief that the people of Montgomery were not capable of partici- pating in such a movement was shared by many in the city, particularly whites. Pierce affirmed the analysis that Montgomery’s African Americans were complacent prior to the protest. These assessments, while perhaps empirically descriptive in the minds of both local activists and onlookers, are overly simplistic. For many, simply surviving another day in the racially repressive South was anything but complacent. Assigning complacency to those whose life situations were barely known speaks to the paternalism of many who longed for social change. Some leaders also distrusted the people’s ability to rise together to demand that transformation take place. The boycott helped them overcome any misgivings about the capacity of the masses for constructive action.43 The mass meetings provided some window into who was fully sup- porting the effort, although who actually attended these gatherings is disputed. Montgomery Advertiser editor Joe Azbell, noting the quality of clothing worn to mass meetings, claimed they provided a gathering space for car owners and the wealthy rather than “the maids and the janitors and the cooks and the people that are dependent on the bus service.” Based on his superficial appraisal, Azbell concluded that “the preachers and the business men and the doctors and the lawyers” were providing leadership and “are the ones who are pushing this thing.” He believed the people wanted to return to the buses, “but their leaders won’t let them.” Azbell’s assessments demonstrate the significant cultural gap be- tween blacks and whites in segregated Montgomery. Azbell did not know many of the people who gathered at mass meetings, and was unaware of the importance for many African Americans of wearing nice and respect- able clothing when one entered a church sanctuary. The fact that those who attended mass meetings wore nice clothing did not indicate their social standing or how much money they had. He also underestimated the agency and self-determination of the working people who provided 44 the backbone of this movement. One wonders if the majority of the professional class was ever fully on