Montgomery boycott marchers wore through their shoes walking for justice.

Evidence

My mom replied that George Wallace was an evil man who did terrible things to hurt the Black people of Alabama. This led to a conversation about segregation and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She explained that her brother Renty “Willie” was a master carpenter and plumber, and that just before the boycott, he had purchased a new pair of work boots. But before the boycott could end, she said, “he had walked a hole clean through. Those were his civil rights shoes, proof of them many miles walked for justice.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1078

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the reader’s interest in family memory and genealogy as survival against archives; parallel to how Lanier reconstructs history from family testimony.