On May 26, 1956, Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Patterson, two female students from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, sat in the whites-only section of a segregated Tallahassee bus and, after refusing to move to the colored section at the rear, were arrested by Tallahassee police and charged with placing themselves in a position to incite a riot. In the days that followed, students at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University organized a campus-wide boycott of city buses, and their stand against segregation inspired other Tallahassee citizens to join the movement. As news of the boycott spread, Reverend C.K. Steele helped form the Inter-Civic Council to manage its logistics, in part because negative publicity surrounded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which segregationists attacked as a front for communist activity and used to claim that outside agitators were trying to inflame racial tensions in Tallahassee. The Inter-Civic Council created a car pool system to transport African-Americans during the boycott, and Steele was later among those arrested in connection with the car pools. A slogan attributed to Steele declared, "I would rather walk in dignity than ride in humiliation."