56 BECOMING KING perpetuate degrading treatment on the buses, Fields laid out the follow- ing five recommendations: 1. Provide buses on any given route in proportion to the population of bus riders in that area. 2. Apply the rule “first come, first served” in seating passengers. Es- pecially on buses serving in predominantly Negro areas. 3. Forbid bus drivers from insisting or even requesting that Negroes enter the bus through the back door. 4. Hire qualified Negroes for the position of bus driver. 5. It is further recommended that a course or a period of orientation 5 be given each bus driver on chivalry. Fields’s sentiments were not new, and they were not his alone. Members of the Women’s Political Council (WPC) and Pullman porter E. D. Nixon shared Fields’s frustrations. WPC president Jo Ann Rob- inson, wrote a letter to Montgomery mayor W. A. Gayle, offering her reflections on a recent meeting with city commissioners. The WPC had made three specific requests regarding city buses: that blacks fill seats from the back, and whites from the front, until all seats are taken; that blacks not have to exit and reenter in the back after paying; and that buses stop at every block in residential African American neighborhoods, as was the case in white sections of town. While Robinson reported progress on the number of stops many buses were making, the city had failed to ad- dress their seating and boarding concerns. Robinson then added: “More and more of our people are already arranging with neighbors and friends to ride to keep from being insulted and humiliated by bus drivers. There has even been talk from twenty-five or more organizations of planning a 6 city-wide boycott of buses.” The letters by Fields and Robinson reveal not only the level of frus- tration over inequities in Montgomery, but also a willingness to speak up about the problems and to engage the city in seeking solutions. They also demonstrate different priorities among those seeking racial justice in the city. Although Fields’s letter included as an important demand the hiring of black bus drivers, Robinson’s letter failed to mention a desire for the bus company to employ African American drivers. This seemingly minor