By Alabama Public Radio
Montgomery, AL – Juanita Abernathy spoke about the Montgomery bus boycott 50 years ago that included the arrest of her husband, the Reverend Ralph David Abernathy. She told the crowd she never thought she would be able to come to First Baptist Church and stand behind the pulpit. US Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King the THIRD joined her. Jackson said the work of Ralph Abernathy, an aide to the Reverend Martin Luther King Junior, and two women, Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith, who were arrested in the months before Rosa Parks in 1955. The event was one of many being hosted by the Southern Women's Leadership Development Institute to commemorate the bus boycott anniversary.