Irene West
*Irene West was born on this date in 1890. She was a Black educator and Activist. She was born and raised in Perry County, Alabama.
West was born and raised in Perry County, Alabama. She graduated from Alabama State College, now called Alabama State University, and attended Tuskegee and Hampton Institutes. West was a member of numerous civic organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Women’s League for Peace and Freedom. She joined the Women’s Political Council (WPC) shortly after it was founded in 1946 and became its treasurer.
As a WPC organizer, West was involved in projects to fight voter suppression and educational issues, improve the treatment of blacks on city buses, and efforts to improve the poor quality of segregated parks and recreational facilities. Although West was in her sixties at the start of the Montgomery bus boycott, she was one of the most involved activists in distributing information about the boycott, calling civic leaders to meetings, and driving in the carpool. In Stride Toward Freedom, Martin Luther King Jr.'s memoir of the boycott, he recalled West’s enthusiasm for the campaign and how she spent days driving people to work and home again.
West was secretary of the MIA Transportation Committee and was also one of the MIA members arrested for operating the carpool on February 22, 1956, along with her friend, Robinson. Robinson later recalled that during the fingerprinting at the jail, Mrs. West joked with the officers, and “the interchange was good for all of us, and we felt wonderful, relaxed, at peace with ourselves.” Irene West actively participated in the African American freedom struggle and, according to Jo Ann Robinson, dedicated her life to “fighting for the cause of first-class citizenship.” She was a prominent woman in Montgomery, Alabama, married to Dr. A. W. West, Sr., a wealthy dentist; Martin Luther King referred to West as “the real mother of the Movement.” Irene West died on September 7, 1975.
Interviewed early in the boycott, West was already impressed with the youthful King and Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) lawyer Fred Gray, stating: “Their minds are much older than they are biological.” West and several others, including E. D. Nixon, were appointed to the executive board of the MIA because, according to Jo Ann Robinson, “MIA members felt [they] would speak out without fear and speak with authority as representatives of the Black protesters.” She, King, Robinson, and several other MIA members made up a special delegation of representatives who met with city commissioners and bus company officials during the boycott to resolve concerns about the treatment of Blacks on transportation.
