Original Research
‘When we are tired we shall rest’: bus boycotts in the United States of America and South Africa and prospects for comparative history
Submitted: 11 March 2016 | Published: 11 April 2007
About the author(s)
Derek Charles Catsam, University of Texas of the Permian Basin, United StatesFull Text:
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This article looks at some of the practical, methodological, and disciplinary issues connected to comparative and transnational history through the lens of bus boycotts in South Africa and the United States in the 1950s. Comparative history by its very nature requires historians to transcend both the restrictive boundaries that the profession sometimes imposes as well as a fundamentally interdisciplinary approach to scholarship. Yet as the suggestive comparisons between boycotts in Montgomery, Alabama, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the Transvaal in the mid-1950s show, such work can be rewarding in providing a transnational framework for understanding protest movements that transcend national borders. Catsam argues in the end of his article that “a deeper understanding of both [the American and South African] struggles together may well help us better to grasp the significance of each separately.”
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Crossref Citations
1. A Select Bibliography of South African History: Journal Articles, Review Articles and Theses 2007
Hleziphi Napaai, Mary-Lynn Suttie
South African Historical Journal vol: 61 issue: 2 first page: 445 year: 2009
doi: 10.1080/02582470902859716