Citizens Coach Company

The Citizens Coach Company (CCC) was formed as a compromise between local government officials in Little Rock and national union leaders of the Amalgamated Association of Street, Electric Railway, and Motor Coach Employees of America. A strike by the Capitol Transit Company had paralyzed public transportation in Little Rock, North Little Rock, and Cammack Village in 1955, and prosed sporadic violence.

On January 31, 1956, the strike ended with the establishment of the CCC bus franchise. Union leaders were promised "preferred, non-participating shares" in exchange for complicity in the scheme. One-hundred and thirty union drivers and thirty-five mechanics joined the new company in March 1956. The CCC secured enough buses by purchasing used vehicles from the Great Lakes Marmon Herrington Coach Company of Dearborn, Michigan. The president of the new CCC was Fred Worden of Des Moines, and the executive vice president, located in Little Rock, was his son Don Worden.

CCC buses were desegregated without incident in April 1956. In 1962 franchise rights to busing in the city passed to the Twin City Transit Company (TCT), a subsidiary of the St. John Transportation Company (SJTC). In 1972 TCT passed into the hands of the local governments, and became the publicly-owned Central Arkansas Transit (CAT).

References

• William Jordan Patty, "'Victory Based on Violence is Undesirable': The Little Rock Bus Strike of 1955-1956," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 61.3 (Autumn 2002): 233-255.