Inez Baskin

Baskin was born in Florala, Alabama, on June 18, 1916.

After positions as a teacher and a typist,[3] she became a journalist and reporter for the "Negro News" section of the Montgomery Adviser newspaper.[1] In 1955, following the arrest of Rosa Parks, Baskin was hired by Jet Magazine and the American Negro Press to cover the Montgomery bus boycott.

Baskin was an active supporter of the bus boycott and the Civil Rights Movement, as well as a reporter of the event. She is most famous for riding one seat in front of Martin Luther King Jr. on a Montgomery bus during the boycott.[1]

Baskin graduated from what is now Alabama State University with an education degree. She received a degree in divinity from Selma University, and taught classes to ministers in theological schools.[3]

She was a licensed social worker and a church pianist. She implemented Montgomery, Alabama's first Head Start program, as well as its first hot-lunch program for low-income children.[3]

She died in Montgomery, Alabama, of heart failure, on June 28, 2007.[3]

• Rabey, Jennifer (2009). A Woman's Good Works: The Life of Inez Jessie Turner Baskin and Her Fight for Civil and Human Rights in the Cradle of the Confederacy. Thesis, Auburn University.

• Four photographs of Inez Jesse Turner Baskin as a child in Florala, Alabama
• Inez Baskin Papers