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Rosa Parks Arrest
Parks chose to take a seat on the bus on her ride home from work. She sat down and refused to give up her seat to a white passenger, she was arrested for disobeying an Alabama law requiring black people to relinquish seats to white people when the bus was full. -
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Montgomery Bus Boycott
The boycott lasted from December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks was arrested, to December 20, 1956, when Browder v. Gayle, a Federal ruling declaring racially segregated seating on buses to be unconstitutional, took effect. Rosa Parks’s refusal to give up her seat on a public bus sparked incredible change that would forever impact civil rights in the United States. -
Mongomery Chapter of the NAACP and the Mongomery Improvement Association
Just a few days after Parks’s arrest, activists announced plans for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which officially began December 5, 1955. E. D. Nixon, president of the local NAACP chapter, called for all African-American citizens to boycott the public bus system to protest the segregation policy. Nixon and his supporters vowed to abstain from riding Montgomery public buses until the policy was abolished. -
Boycott gained National Recognition
Before her arrest Parks was a secretary for the local NAACP. Her position had attracted the interest of the national NAACP organization which represented her in court but also organized a local rebellion against the discriminative bus laws. Martin Luther King Jr, a local southern Baptist minister, one of the most recognized civil rights activists madearrangements on protesting against the bus system by boycotting its services which led to losses by the company. -
Martin Luther King Jr.
The Montgomery bus boycott echoed far beyond the desegregation of public buses. The boycott stimulated activism and participation from the South in the national Civil Rights Movement and gave Martin Luther King Jr. national attention as a rising leader for the Civil Right Movement. -
End of Montgomery Bus Boycott
Pressure increased across the country. The related civil suit was heard in federal district court and, on June 5, 1956, the court ruled that Alabama's racial segregation laws for buses were unconstitutional, as the state appealed the decision, the boycott continued. The case moved on to the United States Supreme Court. On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court upheld the district court's ruling. The bus boycott officially ended on December 20, 1956.