The Montgomery Bus Boycotts

By srutter002

  • Jo Ann Robinson

    Jo Ann Robinson, president of the Women’s Political Council (WPC), had her own run in concerning the segregated seats on the Montgomery buses in 1949 and had vowed in 1950 to make “desegregating the city’s buses one of the organization’s top priorities” (“Jo Ann”, para.4 , 2024).

  • Rosa Parks

    The Montgomery Bus Boycott protested against segregated seats on public buses. The boycott lasted about a year and is known to be the “first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation” (Onion, para. 1, 2023). Right before the boycott on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man at the front of the bus. Her arrest sparked the numerous bus boycotts across Alabama.

  • One Day Boycott

    E. D. Nixon, head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Jo Ann Robinson convinced Rosa Parks of the “power of her case” to help end segregation (“E.D. Nixon”, para. 8, 2020). Nixon enlisted the help of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to lead the one day long boycott.

  • MIA

    Due to the success of the one day boycott, Nixon, MLK Jr., and minister Ralph D. Abernathy, who later co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), created the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to continue the boycotts (“Ralph D.”, para. 1, 2021).

  • Year Long Boycott

    The MIA was in charge of directing the yearlong bus boycotts, increasing morale, and providing different means of transportation through “private cars and church station wagons” (“The Montgomery”, para.1, n.d.). They also coordinated with the NAACP and gained support from other civil rights organizations in the North and South (“Montgomery Improvement”, n.d.)

  • Browder v. Gayle

    In November of 1956, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of “the lower court’s decision in Browder v. Gayle, legally ending racial segregation on public transportation in the state of Alabama” (“‘Browder v.’”, para. 12, n.d.). The work of Rosa Parks, Jo Ann Robinson, E.D. Nixon, MLK Jr., and Ralph D. Abernathy along with the organizations they created, finally outlawed segregation and the boycotts ended in December of that same year.

  • SCLC

    King became a national figure and activist for the end of all segregation and the MIA became a founding organization of the SCLC, a new civil rights organization (“Montgomery Improvement”, n.d.).

  • SCLC Efforts

    The SCLC focused its efforts on citizenship schools, desegregating whole cities and addressing economic inequality. The assassination of Dr. King did not stop the organization's efforts and the SCLC is still active as a human rights organization today. (“Southern Christian”, n.d.)