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Montgomery bus boycott

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• BlackPast - Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Bill of Rights Institute - Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
• National Park Service - The Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Academia - The Social-Psychological Origins of the Montgomery Bus Boycott: Social Interaction and Humiliation in the Emergence of Social Movements
• Encyclopedia of Alabama - Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Black History in America - Rosa Parks Bus Boycott
• NPR - The Women Behind the Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Stanford University - The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute - Montgomery bus boycott
• Montgomery bus boycott - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• Montgomery bus boycott - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Montgomery bus boycott , mass protest against the bus system of Montgomery , Alabama , by civil rights activists and their supporters that led to a 1956 U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring that Montgomery’s segregation laws on buses were unconstitutional. The 381-day bus boycott also brought the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., into the spotlight as one of the most important leaders of the American civil rights movement .

The event that triggered the boycott took place in Montgomery on December 1, 1955, after seamstress Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white passenger on a city bus. Local laws dictated that African American passengers sat at the back of the bus while whites sat in front. If the white section became full, African Americans had to give up their seats in the back. When Parks refused to move to give her seat to a white rider, she was taken to jail; she was later bailed out by a local civil rights leader.

Many of Montgomery’s African American residents were politically organized long before Parks was arrested. For example, the Women’s Political Council (WPC) was founded in 1946, and it had been lobbying the city for improved conditions on the buses for a decade before the bus boycott began. In addition, Montgomery had an active branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where Parks also worked as a secretary.

Although Parks was not the first resident of Montgomery to refuse to give up her seat to a white passenger, local civil rights leaders decided to capitalize on her arrest as a chance to challenge local segregation laws. Shortly after Parks’s arrest, Jo Ann Robinson, a leader of the WPC, and E.D. Nixon, president of the local NAACP , printed and distributed leaflets describing Parks’s arrest and called for a one-day boycott of the city buses on December 5. They believed that the boycott could be effective because the Montgomery bus system was heavily dependent on African American riders, who made up about 75 percent of the ridership. Some 90 percent of the African American residents stayed off the buses that day.

The boycott was so successful that local civil rights leaders decided to extend it indefinitely. A group of local ministers formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to support and sustain the boycott and the legal challenge to the segregation laws. Martin Luther King, the charismatic young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, was elected president of the MIA. A powerful orator, he was new to the area and had few enemies, and, thus, local leaders believed he could rally the various factions of the African American community to the cause.

The MIA initially asked for first-come, first-served seating, with African Americans starting in the rear and white passengers beginning in the front of the bus. They also asked that African American bus drivers be hired for routes primarily made up of African American riders. The bus companies and Montgomery officials refused to meet those demands. Many white citizens retaliated against the African American community: King’s home was bombed, and many boycotters were threatened or fired from their jobs. Several times the police arrested protesters and took them to jail, once charging 80 leaders of the boycott with violating a 1921 law that barred conspiracies to interfere with lawful business without just cause.

Despite such intimidation, the boycott continued for more than a year. The MIA filed a federal suit against bus segregation, and on June 5, 1956, a federal district court declared segregated seating on buses to be unconstitutional. The Supreme Court upheld that ruling in mid-November. The federal decision went into effect on December 20, 1956.

The boycott garnered a great deal of publicity in the national press, and King became well known throughout the country. The success in Montgomery inspired other African American communities in the South to protest racial discrimination and galvanized the direct nonviolent resistance phase of the civil rights movement.

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Montgomery Bus Boycott

By: History.com Editors

Updated: January 10, 2023 | Original: February 3, 2010

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. The boycott took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation. Four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks , an African American woman, was arrested and fined for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white man. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system, and one of the leaders of the boycott, a young pastor named Martin Luther King Jr. , emerged as a prominent leader of the American civil rights movement .

Rosa Parks' Bus

In 1955, African Americans were still required by a Montgomery, Alabama , city ordinance to sit in the back half of city buses and to yield their seats to white riders if the front half of the bus, reserved for whites, was full.

But on December 1, 1955, African American seamstress Rosa Parks was commuting home on Montgomery’s Cleveland Avenue bus from her job at a local department store. She was seated in the front row of the “colored section.” When the white seats filled, the driver, J. Fred Blake, asked Parks and three others to vacate their seats. The other Black riders complied, but Parks refused.

She was arrested and fined $10, plus $4 in court fees. This was not Parks’ first encounter with Blake. In 1943, she had paid her fare at the front of a bus he was driving, then exited so she could re-enter through the back door, as required. Blake pulled away before she could re-board the bus.

Did you know? Nine months before Rosa Parks' arrest for refusing to give up her bus seat, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested in Montgomery for the same act. The city's Black leaders prepared to protest, until it was discovered Colvin was pregnant and deemed an inappropriate symbol for their cause.

Although Parks has sometimes been depicted as a woman with no history of civil rights activism at the time of her arrest, she and her husband Raymond were, in fact, active in the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ), and Parks served as its secretary.

Upon her arrest, Parks called E.D. Nixon, a prominent Black leader, who bailed her out of jail and determined she would be an upstanding and sympathetic plaintiff in a legal challenge of the segregation ordinance. African American leaders decided to attack the ordinance using other tactics as well.

The Women’s Political Council (WPC), a group of Black women working for civil rights, began circulating flyers calling for a boycott of the bus system on December 5, the day Parks would be tried in municipal court. The boycott was organized by WPC President Jo Ann Robinson.

Montgomery’s African Americans Mobilize

As news of the boycott spread, African American leaders across Montgomery (Alabama’s capital city) began lending their support. Black ministers announced the boycott in church on Sunday, December 4, and the Montgomery Advertiser , a general-interest newspaper, published a front-page article on the planned action.

Approximately 40,000 Black bus riders—the majority of the city’s bus riders—boycotted the system the next day, December 5. That afternoon, Black leaders met to form the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). The group elected Martin Luther King Jr. , the 26-year-old-pastor of Montgomery’s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church , as its president, and decided to continue the boycott until the city met its demands.

Initially, the demands did not include changing the segregation laws; rather, the group demanded courtesy, the hiring of Black drivers, and a first-come, first-seated policy, with whites entering and filling seats from the front and African Americans from the rear.

Ultimately, however, a group of five Montgomery women, represented by attorney Fred D. Gray and the NAACP, sued the city in U.S. District Court, seeking to have the busing segregation laws totally invalidated.

Although African Americans represented at least 75 percent of Montgomery’s bus ridership, the city resisted complying with the protester’s demands. To ensure the boycott could be sustained, Black leaders organized carpools, and the city’s African American taxi drivers charged only 10 cents—the same price as bus fare—for African American riders.

Many Black residents chose simply to walk to work or other destinations. Black leaders organized regular mass meetings to keep African American residents mobilized around the boycott.

Integration at Last

On June 5, 1956, a Montgomery federal court ruled that any law requiring racially segregated seating on buses violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution . That amendment, adopted in 1868 following the U.S. Civil War , guarantees all citizens—regardless of race—equal rights and equal protection under state and federal laws.

The city appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court , which upheld the lower court’s decision on December 20, 1956. Montgomery’s buses were integrated on December 21, 1956, and the boycott ended. It had lasted 381 days.

Bus Boycott Meets With Violence

Integration, however, met with significant resistance and even violence. While the buses themselves were integrated, Montgomery maintained segregated bus stops. Snipers began firing into buses, and one shooter shattered both legs of a pregnant African American passenger.

In January 1957, four Black churches and the homes of prominent Black leaders were bombed; a bomb at King’s house was defused. On January 30, 1957, the Montgomery police arrested seven bombers; all were members of the Ku Klux Klan , a white supremacist group. The arrests largely brought an end to the busing-related violence.

The MLK Graphic Novel That Inspired John Lewis and Generations of Civil Rights Activists

The illustrated book was first printed in 1957 and encouraged young people, including future Congressman John Lewis, to stage nonviolent protests.

Bet You Didn’t Know: Rosa Parks

Did you know Rosa Parks wasn’t the first African American woman to refuse to give up her seat? Get the full story.

March on Washington

Find out how Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech became an impromptu addition to the March on Washington.

Boycott Puts Martin Luther King Jr. in Spotlight

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was significant on several fronts. First, it is widely regarded as the earliest mass protest on behalf of civil rights in the United States, setting the stage for additional large-scale actions outside the court system to bring about fair treatment for African Americans.

Second, in his leadership of the MIA, Martin Luther King Jr. emerged as a prominent national leader of the civil rights movement while also solidifying his commitment to nonviolent resistance. King’s approach remained a hallmark of the civil rights movement throughout the 1960s.

Shortly after the boycott’s end, he helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a highly influential civil rights organization that worked to end segregation throughout the South. The SCLC was instrumental in the civil rights campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, in the spring of 1963, and the March on Washington in August of that same year, during which King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech .

The boycott also brought national and international attention to the civil rights struggles occurring in the United States, as more than 100 reporters visited Montgomery during the boycott to profile the effort and its leaders.

Rosa Parks, while shying from the spotlight throughout her life, remained an esteemed figure in the history of American civil rights activism. In 1999, the U.S. Congress awarded her its highest honor, the Congressional Gold Medal.

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Martin Luther King and the Montgomery bus boycott for Leaving Cert History #625Lab

What was the contribution of martin luther king to the montgomery bus boycott and to other aspects of us life.

#625Lab – History , marked 85/100, detailed feedback at the very bottom. You may also like:  Leaving Cert History Guide  (€).

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a well-known civil rights leader and activist who had a great deal of influence on American society in the 1950s and 1960s. He contributed greatly to the events of the Montgomery bus boycott and to other aspects of US life through his non-violent actions. In 1954 in America, the US Supreme Court removed the legal basis for segregation in education. However, in the southern states Jim Crow laws continued to enforce segregation and discrimination in housing, transport and various public facilities.

In Montgomery, Alabama, a southern city with a long history of racial tension, segregated seating was present on buses. African American people could only sit at the back for the bus and had to stand up for a white people if the front seats were occupied. On the evening of 1 December 1955, an African American seamstress Rosa Parks got on a bus in downtown Montgomery. When asked to move to let a white person sit down, she refused. The police were called and minutes later, Rosa Parks was arrested. Parks was well known and respected in the African American community in Montgomery, and she has been secretary of the Montgomery NAACP. From jail she phoned Daniel Nixon, leader of the NAACP in Alabama. He agreed to pay her bail and decided that they could go the Supreme Court with this case, and boycott the bus. Nixon knew that challenging racism in the supreme courts would require the support of other African American leaders. He contacted the reverend Ralph Abernathy and the reverend Martin Luther King, a popular young baptist minister. King’s popularity in the community gave this case credibility.

A one day bus boycott for December 5, 1955 was organised by the women’s political committee, the day parks was due in court. Meanwhile, threats of violence against bus drivers were present in the African American community. In order to prevent violence, on 2 December Nixon , Abernathy and King called a meeting in King’s church. Over 40 religious and civic leaders from the African American community agreed to support the boycott. Their message was one of non co-operation. Organisers hoped that 60% of the community would back the boycott but it turned out to be almost 100%. King attended Rosa Parks’ trial that day where she was found guilty, and fined $14. Nixon called for an appeal.

The elders of the boycott met up and set up a permanent organisation for the boycott as they had already decided that it should last more than one day. They called it the Montgomery improvement association. Martin Luther King was unanimously elected leader of the group. That evening he addressed a huge crowd at a meeting held by the MIA. He urged them to follow non-violent Christian principles, to use persuasion, not coercion. The MIA wanted segregation on buses to end, black people to be treated with courtesy by bus drivers and for black drivers to be employed on the buses. King closed the meeting by calling on all those in favour to stand. Everybody stood. This was the grinning of King’s important contribution to the Montgomery bus boycott.

King was a dedicated and popular minister at the Dexter Anne Baptist church in Montgomery and was active in the local branch of the NAACP. He was young, energetic and a brilliant public speaker. King and the other leaders held meetings to plan strategy and set up a transportation committee to raise funds and organise alternative transport for African Americans. After Christmas 1955, when it became clear that the African American community were determined it continue the boycott, some white people began to use measures aimed at forcing them to give up. On 22 January the city announced that the boycott was over and that a settlement had been reached. King shut down these rumours by responding quickly and telling the African Americans to ignore these reports. It was quick thinking like this by King that ensured that the bus boycott was a success. He was also arrested for breaking an old law which prohibited boycotts. His arrest and trial made headlines and international news, bringing more publicity to the movement.

On 13 December, the US Supreme Court declared that segregated seating on public buses was unconstitutional. The Supreme court’s decision was to come into operation on 20 December 1956. On 21 December , in a symbolic gesture, King and a white minister, Glenn Smiley, sat together in what was previously a whites-only section on a bus. King and his associates had successfully made segregation on public transport illegal. He had successfully contributed to both the Montgomery bus boycott and to the Black Civil rights movement in America.

In 1957, King helped to set up the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Its aim was to continue working for change, using non-violent tactics. In 1958 the SCLC began its crusade to double the number of African- American voters in the South by 1960. In 1960, some African-American students began ‘sit-ins’ at segregated lunch counters. King supported them and was arrested in October 1960. This brought publicity to the protest. By the end of the year the peaceful sit-in campaign by over 50,000 young people had succeeded in desegregating public facilities in more than 100 cities in the south.

In April 1963, King organised a protest march in Birmingham, Alabama – a big industrial city known for its racial prejudice. The marchers filled the streets day after day, singing ‘We shall Overcome’. King was arrested, and his ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ was one of the most effective documents of the civil rights movements. On 8 May, six thousand African-American children marched through Birmingham. On the following day the police chief, Eugene O’Connor, ordered is men to use water houses, electric cattle prods and dogs against the protesters. Crucially, these events were broadcast live on national television and shocked audiences, winning widespread white support for King. The president sent officials to negotiate with he city authorities. The violence ended and the protestors were granted most of their demands. Kennedy brought in a civil Rights Bill providing for an end to all discrimination and an extension of voting rights for African Americans. This bill was delayed by congress, but King still contributed greatly to the progression of civil rights for African Americans with this protest march.

One of Martin Luther’s most famous contributions to the Black civil rights movement occurred in August of 1963, when King led a march on Washington, D.C to demonstrate for ‘jobs and freedom’. Over 200,00 protestors joined the march and he made his famous ‘I have a dream speech’ . Kennedy feared that the march would make it difficult to get his civil rights bill passed but it was peaceful and orderly, and helped to get the bill passed a year later. The bill was passed in 1964, and it banned discrimination in all public accommodation, outlawed job discrimination and reduced the power of local voter registration boards to disqualify African Americans from voting. This was yet another victory for King and the movement. Martin Luther King condemned the Vietnam war. King said that the war wastes lives and misuses American resources. The Vietnam war went against hi non-violent agenda. This public condemnation contributed to public outcry concerning the war.

In 1964, small-scale violence erupted in Harlem. In August 1965, five days after the civil rights bill was signed by the President, a huge riot broke out in Watts, an African-American ghetto in Los Angeles. For six days, looting and fighting between African-American youths and police raged. The riot greatly upset King and he moved the SCLC headquarters to Chicago, determined to shift his focus from the south to the northern ghettos and the problems of jobs and housing. During the summers of 1966 and 1967, further rioting took place in the north . In 1967, 83 people were killed in 164 different riots, causing over $100 million in damages to property. The civil rights movement became divided as king appealed for calm and denounced the violence and insisted that militants only represented a minority of African Americans. In April 1968, King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. His death seemed to destroy any hope of resolving the race problem.

Martin Luther King made enormous contributions to both the Montgomery bus boycott and to US life by progressing the Civil rights movement through non-violent means. He started a progression towards equality that ultimately resulted in the legal equality between black and white people in America in today’s society. He is remembered to this day as an iconic figure in the civil rights movement , both in America and internationally.

Feedback : This essay is a really good length and answers the question well. Your paragraphs are detailed and full of relevant historical fact, with lots of statistics. You use a few short quotations, but it would be better to incorporate a few more. Your introduction does its job well and the conclusion is good as it doesn’t just summarise, it also ties the topic into the present day. The way you use the order of importance in some of your key sentences, like “ One of Martin Luther’s most famous contributions ”, is good as it adds an extra layer to your judgement.

Cumulative Mark: For your cumulative mark, this would definitely achieve the maximum 60 out of 60 marks, as there are enough well-written paragraphs to accumulate this mark.

Overall Evaluation Mark: For Overall Evaluation, I’d give this about 25 marks out of 40. This is a really good mark, but you can improve it if you want by including some more quotation, doing some extra reading or by providing some more detailed analysis of the facts you present.

Total Mark: 85/100

Why did the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1956) take place, how was it carried out, and to what extent was it successful? (2015)

#625Lab – History , marked 90/100, detailed feedback at the very bottom. You may also like:  Leaving Cert History Guide  (€).

Although the American Constitution of 1791 declared that “all men were created equal… they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights”, this was a far cry from the reality reflected in society in the first half of the twentieth century. This was particularly true for states like Alabama in the Deep South where Jim Crow laws were enforced, which promoted a “separate but equal” treatment of the races. Alabama’s capital was Montgomery, a city with 50,000 blacks and 70,000 whites. The city’s bus company followed the pattern of segregation and harsh penalties were enforced on anyone who dared to question the status quo. In the middle of the twentieth century, however, this would change as a result of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a tremendous statement of defiance which would change the face of America.

It could be argued that the origins of the boycott have their roots in 1943, when a black seamstress named Rosa Parks paid for her bus fare and then watched the bus drive off as she tried to enter the bus through the blacks-only rear door. Like many black women at the time, Parks was working in a low-paid job and was now starting to question the treatment her race was receiving. The seed had been sown for the next episode in her career as an activist.

On Thursday 1st December 1955, she boarded a city bus on the way home from work and when the bus became full with white passengers and the driver demanded that four black passengers move back one row to make room, Parks refused. She iconically said “I don’t think I should have to” before being promptly arrested. Parks was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, so naturally E.D. Nixon, the organisation’s leader, took an interest in her case. He had been looking for somebody to test out his boundaries in the courts in the hope of getting Jim Crow laws declared as constitutional. He had been curious about the similar case of fifteen year-old Claudette Colvin months before, but when it was revealed that she was pregnant he lost interest as he needed to be certain that he “had somebody [he] could win with”. On the other hand, Parks was respectable, had been educated at the Laboratory School in Alabama State College and attended church regularly. After discussing the risks with her husband and mother, Rosa Parks agreed to be the figurehead of the campaign. This episode catalysed the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

The boycott was organised by the MIA (Montgomery Improvement Association) with the aid of the Womens’ Political Council of Montgomery, led by Jo Ann Robinson, and the black ministers of Montgomery such as Martin Luther King. King was a great orator, and it was written that “as King spoke in a singsong cadence, his followers would cry and clap and sway, carried away by the magic of his oratory. With his help, 35,000 leaflets advertising the boycott were distributed at services the next Sunday.

In court on Monday the 5th of December Rosa Parks was fined $10 for civil disobedience and this coincided with the start of the boycott. It was met with great success, with most of the city’s black population complying. It was decided that the boycott would continue for as long as the City Council kept withholding the following: employment of black drivers on the buses, allocation of seats on a first come, first served basis, and the right to courteous treatment by drivers for all passengers, regardless of colour.

The leaders of the boycott collected money to buy station wagons for a private taxi service. Some of the money came from local black workers, the NAACP, the United Auto Workers’ Union and the Montgomery Jewish community, among other minorities. A carpool system was organised whereby people gathered at churches and waited to be collected by others to get to work in order to undermine the attitude of the boycott’s critics, who were adamant that the buses would be full again the next rainy morning. However, the boycotters’ tenacity was clearly underestimated and the boycott continued for a total of 381 days, until December 21st 1956, This was thanks to public donations, dedication and $30,000 being raised by the church.

The boycotters met fierce resistance. The Ku Klux Klan became active and the likes of burning crosses were planted in King’s garden. Acid was poured on the cars of the boycotters and the homes of King and other leaders were bombed. King was arrested for doing thirty miles per hour in a twenty five miles per hour zone and in February 1956, eighty nine blacks including King were arrested under an old law banning boycotting. Twenty four ministers were also arrested throughout the year for cooperation.

At the same time the NAACP’s lawsuit was advancing through the courts, and on the 13th of November 1956 the Supreme Court in Washington DC ruled that the segregation laws were unconstitutional. The boycott was eventually called off and on the 21st of December 1956, King and his supporters boarded a Greyhound bus for the first time in 381 days. For the first time ever they sat at the front. Their tenacity had earned them victory.

The boycott was classified as a roaring success, not only because the boycotters achieved their aims with regard to Rosa Parks’ specific case, but also because the boycott ended segregation on Montgomery’s buses completely. It also introduced the idea of non-violent protest, an approach take that would later be used by King and others in order to progress the civil rights movement even further. The episode paved the way for the likes of the freedom riders and the lunch counter sit-ins. It also gave rise to institutions like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference which would be instrumental in the next steps toward an egalitarian society. Overall it was a massive success that changed the face of American society in a new and unprecedented way. In the words of Joseph Lowery, “the Montgomery Bus Boycott was an era of self-determination”.

Feedback : This is a really great essay in that it answers the question without being repetitive. It shows a good understanding of the material, and you provide good commentary as well, such as making comments on the tenacity of the boycotters. You also make good use of quotations. Your introduction is good as it gives some background as well as laying out the topic of the essay, and your conclusion is strong too as it is more than just a summary of the essay. For future essays that require you to answer several parts, maybe watch out to be clear in what part you’re answering with each paragraph and try to ensure that all sections are given somewhat equal attention. 

Cumulative Mark : while this is a really well-written essay, the fact that there are only 9 paragraphs means that you might not hit the maximum of 60 cumulative marks – you would need at least 6 marks on each paragraph, and while you could achieve this, it would be safest to add an extra paragraph or two just to be certain that you can hit 60. It is possible that this particular essay could achieve 60/60.

Overall Evaluation : for Overall Evaluation, I’d give this around 30/40 as your treatment of the question is very good.

Total : 90/100

• Post author: Martina
• Post published: December 21, 2018
• Post category: #625Lab History / History

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Why was the Montgomery Bus Boycott so successful?

On December 1, 1955, a single act of defiance by Rosa Parks against racial segregation on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus ignited a year-long boycott that would become a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, led by a young Martin Luther King Jr., mobilized the African American community in a collective stand against injustice, challenging the deeply entrenched laws of segregation in the South.

This historic protest signaled the power of nonviolent resistance and grassroots activism in the fight for racial equality.

Here is how it happened.

What were the causes of the boycott?

Before the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the city of Montgomery, Alabama, like much of the American South, enforced strict racial segregation laws, known as Jim Crow laws, which mandated separate public facilities for white and black citizens.

Public transportation was no exception, with buses segregated by race and black passengers often subjected to humiliating treatment.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks , a seamstress and a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus, as was required by law.

Her arrest for this act of civil disobedience sparked outrage within the African American community.

In response, black leaders in Montgomery, including a young pastor named Martin Luther King Jr. , organized a meeting at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church to discuss a course of action.

They formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to oversee the boycott and chose King as its president, recognizing his leadership potential and oratorical skills.

How did the Montgomery Bus Boycott work?

The Montgomery Bus Boycott officially began on December 5, 1955, the day of Rosa Parks' trial.

In preparation, flyers were distributed and announcements were made in black churches throughout the city, calling for African Americans to avoid using the buses on that day.

The response was overwhelming, with an estimated 90% of Montgomery's black residents participating in the boycott on the first day.

The boycotters' demands were simple: courteous treatment by bus drivers, first-come-first-served seating with blacks filling seats from the back and whites from the front, and the employment of black bus drivers on predominantly black routes. 

The success of the initial boycott led to a meeting at the Holt Street Baptist Church, where more than 5,000 black residents gathered to discuss the possibility of extending the protest.

With Martin Luther King Jr. emerging as a leading voice, the community decided to continue the boycott until their demands for fair treatment on the buses were met.

The boycott, initially planned to last for just one day, stretched on for 381 days, severely impacting the city's transit system and drawing international attention.

How did the authorities respond?

The city's response was initially dismissive, and the boycotters' resolve was met with resistance from white officials and citizens.

The city government and the bus company refused to negotiate, and legal and economic pressure was applied to try to break the boycott.

Despite these challenges, the black community's commitment to the boycott remained strong. 

They organized carpool systems, and many walked long distances to work, school, and church. 

The city's legal system targeted the boycott with injunctions and lawsuits, aiming to cripple the movement by arresting its leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., on charges related to the boycott.

Economic pressure was also applied, as many black workers, who were participating in the boycott, faced threats of job loss or actual termination. 

King's eloquence and conviction were evident in his speeches and sermons, which he used to articulate the goals of the boycott and to call for unity and perseverance.

His home and the churches where he spoke became targets for segregationist violence, with his house being bombed in January 1956. 

Why did the boycott end?

The successful conclusion of the boycott, with the Supreme Court ruling in Browder v. Gayle that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional, was a testament to the effectiveness of coordinated, nonviolent protest. 

This Supreme Court ruling not only desegregated buses in Montgomery but also set a legal precedent that would be used to challenge other forms of segregation.

The boycott also propelled Martin Luther King Jr. into the national spotlight, establishing him as a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement. 

The Montgomery Bus Boycott had a profound impact on the Civil Rights Movement, setting a precedent for nonviolent protest and serving as a catalyst for future civil rights actions.

The successful boycott demonstrated the power of collective action and the effectiveness of nonviolent resistance, inspiring similar protests and boycotts across the South.

It also brought national and international attention to the struggle for civil rights in the United States, highlighting the injustices of segregation and racial discrimination.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott is often seen as the beginning of a new phase in the Civil Rights Movement, one that focused on direct action and mass mobilization.

It laid the groundwork for future campaigns, such as the sit-ins , Freedom Rides , and the March on Washington, which further advanced the cause of civil rights and social justice in America. 

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Montgomery Bus Boycott

December 5, 1955 to December 20, 1956

Sparked by the arrest of Rosa  Parks  on 1 December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. The  Montgomery Improvement Association  (MIA) coordinated the boycott, and its president, Martin Luther King, Jr., became a prominent civil rights leader as international attention focused on Montgomery. The bus boycott demonstrated the potential for nonviolent mass protest to successfully challenge racial segregation and served as an example for other southern campaigns that followed. In  Stride Toward Freedom , King’s 1958 memoir of the boycott, he declared the real meaning of the Montgomery bus boycott to be the power of a growing self-respect to animate the struggle for civil rights.

The roots of the bus boycott began years before the arrest of Rosa Parks. The  Women’s Political Council  (WPC), a group of black professionals founded in 1946, had already turned their attention to Jim Crow practices on the Montgomery city buses. In a meeting with Mayor W. A. Gayle in March 1954, the council's members outlined the changes they sought for Montgomery’s bus system: no one standing over empty seats; a decree that black individuals not be made to pay at the front of the bus and enter from the rear; and a policy that would require buses to stop at every corner in black residential areas, as they did in white communities. When the meeting failed to produce any meaningful change, WPC president Jo Ann  Robinson  reiterated the council’s requests in a 21 May letter to Mayor Gayle, telling him, “There has been talk from twenty-five or more local organizations of planning a city-wide boycott of buses” (“A Letter from the Women’s Political Council”).

A year after the WPC’s meeting with Mayor Gayle, a 15-year-old named Claudette Colvin was arrested for challenging segregation on a Montgomery bus. Seven months later, 18-year-old Mary Louise Smith was arrested for refusing to yield her seat to a white passenger. Neither arrest, however, mobilized Montgomery’s black community like that of Rosa Parks later that year.

King recalled in his memoir that “Mrs. Parks was ideal for the role assigned to her by history,” and because “her character was impeccable and her dedication deep-rooted” she was “one of the most respected people in the Negro community” (King, 44). Robinson and the WPC responded to Parks’ arrest by calling for a one-day protest of the city’s buses on 5 December 1955. Robinson prepared a series of leaflets at Alabama State College and organized groups to distribute them throughout the black community. Meanwhile, after securing bail for Parks with Clifford and Virginia  Durr , E. D.  Nixon , past leader of the Montgomery chapter of the  National Association for the Advancement of Colored People  (NAACP), began to call local black leaders, including Ralph  Abernathy  and King, to organize a planning meeting. On 2 December, black ministers and leaders met at  Dexter Avenue Baptist Church  and agreed to publicize the 5 December boycott. The planned protest received unexpected publicity in the weekend newspapers and in radio and television reports.

On 5 December, 90 percent of Montgomery’s black citizens stayed off the buses. That afternoon, the city’s ministers and leaders met to discuss the possibility of extending the boycott into a long-term campaign. During this meeting the MIA was formed, and King was elected president. Parks recalled: “The advantage of having Dr. King as president was that he was so new to Montgomery and to civil rights work that he hadn’t been there long enough to make any strong friends or enemies” (Parks, 136).

That evening, at a mass meeting at  Holt Street Baptist Church , the MIA voted to continue the boycott. King spoke to several thousand people at the meeting: “I want it to be known that we’re going to work with grim and bold determination to gain justice on the buses in this city. And we are not wrong.… If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong” ( Papers  3:73 ). After unsuccessful talks with city commissioners and bus company officials, on 8 December the MIA issued a formal list of demands: courteous treatment by bus operators; first-come, first-served seating for all, with blacks seating from the rear and whites from the front; and black bus operators on predominately black routes.

The demands were not met, and Montgomery’s black residents stayed off the buses through 1956, despite efforts by city officials and white citizens to defeat the boycott. After the city began to penalize black taxi drivers for aiding the boycotters, the MIA organized a carpool. Following the advice of T. J.  Jemison , who had organized a carpool during a 1953 bus boycott in Baton Rouge, the MIA developed an intricate carpool system of about 300 cars. Robert  Hughes  and others from the Alabama Council for Human Relations organized meetings between the MIA and city officials, but no agreements were reached.

In early 1956, the homes of King and E. D. Nixon were bombed. King was able to calm the crowd that gathered at his home by declaring: “Be calm as I and my family are. We are not hurt and remember that if anything happens to me, there will be others to take my place” ( Papers  3:115 ). City officials obtained injunctions against the boycott in February 1956, and indicted over 80 boycott leaders under a 1921 law prohibiting conspiracies that interfered with lawful business. King was tried and convicted on the charge and ordered to pay $500 or serve 386 days in jail in the case  State of Alabama v. M. L. King, Jr.  Despite this resistance, the boycott continued.

Although most of the publicity about the protest was centered on the actions of black ministers, women played crucial roles in the success of the boycott. Women such as Robinson, Johnnie  Carr , and Irene  West  sustained the MIA committees and volunteer networks. Mary Fair Burks of the WPC also attributed the success of the boycott to “the nameless cooks and maids who walked endless miles for a year to bring about the breach in the walls of segregation” (Burks, “Trailblazers,” 82). In his memoir, King quotes an elderly woman who proclaimed that she had joined the boycott not for her own benefit but for the good of her children and grandchildren (King, 78).

National coverage of the boycott and King’s trial resulted in support from people outside Montgomery. In early 1956 veteran pacifists Bayard  Rustin  and Glenn E.  Smiley  visited Montgomery and offered King advice on the application of Gandhian techniques and  nonviolence  to American race relations. Rustin, Ella  Baker , and Stanley  Levison  founded  In Friendship  to raise funds in the North for southern civil rights efforts, including the bus boycott. King absorbed ideas from these proponents of nonviolent direct action and crafted his own syntheses of Gandhian principles of nonviolence. He said: “Christ showed us the way, and Gandhi in India showed it could work” (Rowland, “2,500 Here Hail”). Other followers of Gandhian ideas such as Richard  Gregg , William Stuart  Nelson , and Homer  Jack  wrote the MIA offering support.

On 5 June 1956, the federal district court ruled in  Browder v. Gayle  that bus segregation was unconstitutional, and in November 1956 the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed  Browder v. Gayle  and struck down laws requiring segregated seating on public buses. The court’s decision came the same day that King and the MIA were in circuit court challenging an injunction against the MIA carpools. Resolved not to end the boycott until the order to desegregate the buses actually arrived in Montgomery, the MIA operated without the carpool system for a month. The Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s ruling, and on 20 December 1956 King called for the end of the boycott; the community agreed. The next morning, he boarded an integrated bus with Ralph Abernathy, E. D. Nixon, and Glenn Smiley. King said of the bus boycott: “We came to see that, in the long run, it is more honorable to walk in dignity than ride in humiliation. So … we decided to substitute tired feet for tired souls, and walk the streets of Montgomery” ( Papers  3:486 ). King’s role in the bus boycott garnered international attention, and the MIA’s tactics of combining mass nonviolent protest with Christian ethics became the model for challenging segregation in the South.

Joe Azbell, “Blast Rocks Residence of Bus Boycott Leader,” 31 January 1956, in  Papers  3:114–115 .

Baker to King, 24 February 1956, in  Papers  3:139 .

Burks, “Trailblazers: Women in the Montgomery Bus Boycott,” in  Women in the Civil Rights Movement , ed. Crawford et al., 1990.

“Don’t Ride the Bus,” 2 December 1955, in  Papers  3:67 .

U. J. Fields, Minutes of Montgomery Improvement Association Founding Meeting, 5 December 1955, in  Papers  3:68–70 .

Gregg to King, 2 April 1956, in  Papers  3:211–212 .

Indictment,  State of Alabama v. M. L. King, Jr., et al. , 21 February 1956, in  Papers  3:132–133 .

Introduction, in  Papers  3:3–7 ;  17–21 ;  29 .

Jack to King, 16 March 1956, in  Papers  3:178–179 .

Judgment and Sentence of the Court,  State of Alabama v. M. L. King, Jr. , 22 March 1956, in  Papers  3:197 .

King, Statement on Ending the Bus Boycott, 20 December 1956, in  Papers  3:485–487 .

King,  Stride Toward Freedom , 1958.

King, Testimony in  State of Alabama v. M. L. King, Jr. , 22 March 1956, in  Papers  3:183–196 .

King to the National City Lines, Inc., 8 December 1955, in  Papers  3:80–81 .

“A Letter from the Women’s Political Council to the Mayor of Montgomery, Alabama,” in  Eyes on the Prize , ed. Carson et al., 1991.

MIA Mass Meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church, 5 December 1955, in  Papers  3:71–79 .

Nelson to King, 21 March 1956, in  Papers  3:182–183 .

Parks and Haskins,  Rosa Parks , 1992.

Robinson,  Montgomery Bus Boycott , 1987.

Stanley Rowland, Jr., “2,500 Here Hail Boycott Leader,”  New York Times , 26 March 1956.

Rustin to King, 23 December 1956, in  Papers  3:491–494 .

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(1955) martin luther king jr., “the montgomery bus boycott”.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott speech reprinted below is one of the first major addresses of Dr. Martin Luther King.   Dr. King spoke to nearly 5,000 people at the Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery on December 5, 1955, just four days after Mrs. Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery city bus.  That arrest led to the first major civil rights campaign in the Deep South in half a century. In this speech King urges the audience which has just voted to boycott the buses to continue that campaign until they achieve their goal of ending the humiliation and intimation of black citizens there and elsewhere in Montgomery or to use his words, “..to gain justice on the buses in the city.”  

My FRIENDS, we are certainly very happy to see each of you out this evening. We are here this evening for serious business. We are here in a general sense because first and foremost we are American citizens and we are determined to apply our citizenship to the fullness of its meaning. We are here also because of our love for democracy, because of our deep-seated belief that democracy transformed from thin paper to thick action is the greatest form of government on earth.

But we are here in a specific sense, because of the bus situation in Montgomery. We are here because we are determined to get the situation corrected. This situation is not at all new. The problem has existed over endless years. For many years now Negroes in Montgomery and so many other areas have been inflicted with the paralysis of crippling fears on buses in our community. On so many occasions, Negroes have been intimidated and humiliated and impressed-oppressed-because of the sheer fact that they were Negroes.  I don’t have time this evening to go into the history of these numerous cases. Many of them now are lost in the thick fog of oblivion but at least one stands before us now with glaring dimensions.

Just the other day, just last Thursday to be exact, one of the finest citizens in  Montgomery not one of the finest Negro citizens, but one of the finest citizens in Montgomery-was taken from a bus and carried to jail and because she refused to get up to give her seat to a white person. Now the press would have us believe that she refused to leave a reserved section for Negroes but I want you to know this evening that there is no reserved section. The law has never been clarified at that point.   Now I think I speak with, with legal authority-not that I have any legal authority, but I think I speak with legal authority behind me -that the law, the ordinance, the city ordinance has never been totally clarified.

Mrs. Rosa Parks is a fine person.  And, since it had to happen, I’m happy that it happened to a person like Mrs. Parks, for nobody can doubt the boundless outreach of her integrity. Nobody can doubt the height of her character nobody can doubt the depth of her Christian commitment and devotion to the teachings of Jesus. And I’m happy since it had to happen, it happened to a person that nobody can call a disturbing factor in the community. Mrs. Parks is a fine Christian person, unassuming, and yet there is integrity and character there. And just because she refused to get up, she was arrested.

And you know, my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression. There comes a time, my friends, when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of humiliation, where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November. There comes a time.

We are here, we are here this evening because we’re tired now.  And I want to say that we are not here advocating violence. We have never done that. I want it to be known throughout Montgomery and throughout this nation that we are Christian people. We believe in the Christian religion. We believe in the teachings of Jesus.  The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest.  That’s all.

And certainly, certainly, this is the glory of America, with all of its faults. This is the glory of our democracy. If we were incarcerated behind the iron curtains of a Communistic nation we couldn’t do this. If we were dropped in the dungeon of a totalitarian regime we couldn’t do this.  But the great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right. My friends, don’t let anybody make us feel that we are to be compared in our actions with the Ku Klux Klan or with the White Citizens Council. There will be no crosses burned at any bus stops in Montgomery. There will be no white persons pulled out of their homes and taken out on some distant road and lynched for not cooperating. There will be nobody amid, among us who will stand up and defy the Constitution of this nation. We only assemble here because of our desire to see right exist. My friends, I want it to be known that we’re going to work with grim and bold determination to gain justice on the buses in this city.

And we are not wrong, we are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong.  If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong.  If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie.  Love has no meaning. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I want to say that in all of our actions we must stick together.  Unity is the great need of the hour, and if we are united we can get many of the things that we not only desire but which we justly deserve. And don’t let anybody frighten you. We are not afraid of what we are doing because we are doing it within the law. There is never a time in our American democracy that we must ever think we’re wrong when we protest. We reserve that right. When labor all over this nation came to see that it would be trampled over by capitalistic power, it was nothing wrong with labor getting together and organizing and protesting for its rights.

We, the disinherited of this land, we who have been oppressed so long, are tired of going through the long night of captivity. And now we are reaching out for the daybreak of freedom and justice and equality. May I say to you my friends, as I come to a close, and just giving some idea of why we are assembled here, that we must keep-and I want to stress this, in all of our doings, in all of our deliberations here this evening and all of the week and while—whatever we do, we must keep God in the forefront. Let us be Christian in all of our actions. But I want to tell you this evening that it is not enough for us to talk about love, love is one of the pivotal points of the Christian face, faith. There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation. Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love.

The Almighty God himself is not the only, not the, not the God just standing out saying through Hosea, “I love you, Israel.” He’s also the God that stands up before the nations and said: “Be still and know that I’m God, that if you don’t obey me I will break the backbone of your power and slap you out of the orbits of your international and national relationships.” Standing beside love is always justice, and we are only using the tools of justice. Not only are we using the tools of persuasion, but we’ve come to see that we’ve got to use the tools of coercion. Not only is this thing a process of education, but it is also a process of legislation.

As we stand and sit here this evening and as we prepare ourselves for what lies ahead, let us go out with a grim and bold determination that we are going to stick together. We are going to work together. Right here in Montgomery, when the history books are written in the future somebody will have to say, “There lived a race of people a black people, ‘fleecy locks and black complexion’, a people who had the moral courage to stand up for their rights. And thereby they injected a new meaning into the veins of history and of civilization.” And we’re gonna do that. God grant that we will do it before it is too late. As we proceed with our program let us think of these things.

But just before leaving I want to say this. I want to urge you. You have voted [for this boycott], and you have done it with a great deal of enthusiasm, and I want to express my appreciation to you, on behalf of everybody here. Now let us go out to stick together and stay with this thing until the end. Now it means sacrificing, yes, it means sacrificing at points. But there are some things that we’ve got to learn to sacrifice for. And we’ve got to come to the point that we are determined not to accept a lot of things that we have been accepting in the past.

So I’m urging you now. We have the facilities for you to get to your jobs, and we are putting, we have the cabs there at your service. Automobiles will be at your service, and don’t be afraid to use up any of the gas. If you have it, if you are fortunate enough to have a little money, use it for a good cause. Now my automobile is gonna be in it, it has been in it, and I’m not concerned about how much gas I’m gonna use. I want to see this thing work. And we will not be content until oppression is wiped out of Montgomery, and really out of America. We won’t be content until that is done. We are merely insisting on the dignity and worth of every human personality. And I don’t stand here, I’m not arguing for any selfish person. I’ve never been on a bus in Montgomery. But I would be less than a Christian if I stood back and said, because I don’t ride the bus, I don’t have to ride a bus, that it doesn’t concern me. I will not be content. I can hear a voice saying, “If you do it unto the least of these, my brother, you do it unto me.”

And I won’t rest; I will face intimidation, and everything else, along with these other stalwart fighters for democracy and for citizenship. We don’t mind it, so long as justice comes out of it. And I’ve come to see now that as we struggle for our rights, maybe some of them will have to die. But somebody said, if a man doesn’t have something that he’ll die for, he isn’t fit to live.

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Montgomery Bus Boycott — Causes And Effects Of The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Causes and Effects of The Montgomery Bus Boycott

• Categories: Montgomery Bus Boycott

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Words: 1586 |

Published: Jun 9, 2021

Words: 1586 | Pages: 3 | 8 min read

Works cited

• Brundage , David. “Significance of the Montgomery Bus Boycott .” 2019.
• Carson, Clayborne. The Eyes on the Prize: Civil Rights Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle, 1954-1990. Penguin Books, 1995.
• Williams, Yohuru R. Rethinking the Black Freedom Movement. Routledge, Taylor Et Francis Group, 2016.

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The montgomery bus boycott.

Years before the boycott, Dexter Avenue minister Vernon Johns sat down in the "whites-only" section of a city bus. When the driver ordered him off the bus, Johns urged other passengers to join him. On March 2, 1955, a black teenager named Claudette Colvin dared to defy bus segregation laws and was forcibly removed from another Montgomery bus.

Nine months later, Rosa Parks - a 42-year-old seamstress and NAACP member- wanted a guaranteed seat on the bus for her ride home after working as a seamstress in a Montgomery department store. After work, she saw a crowded bus stop. Knowing that she would not be able to sit, Parks went to a local drugstore to buy an electric heating pad. After shopping, Parks entered the less crowded Cleveland Avenue bus and was able to find an open seat in the 'colored' section of the bus for her ride home.

Despite having segregated seating arrangements on public buses, it was routine in Montgomery for bus drivers to force African Americans out of their seats for a white passenger. There was very little African Americans could do to stop the practice because bus drivers in Montgomery had the legal ability to arrest passengers for refusing to obey their orders. After a few stops on Parks’ ride home, the white seating section of the bus became full. The driver demanded that Parks give up her seat on the bus so a white passenger could sit down. Parks refused to surrender her seat and was arrested for violating the bus driver’s orders.

Organizing the Boycott

Montgomery's black citizens reacted decisively to the incident. By December 2, schoolteacher Jo Ann Robinson had mimeographed and delivered 50,000 protest leaflets around town. E.D. Nixon, a local labor leader, organized a December 4 meeting at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church , where local black leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA)to spearhead a boycott and negotiate with the bus company.

Over 70% of the cities bus patrons were African American and the one-day boycott was 90% effective. The MIA elected as their president a new but charismatic preacher, Martin Luther King Jr. Under his leadership, the boycott continued with astonishing success. The MIA established a carpool for African Americans. Over 200 people volunteered their car for a car pool and roughly 100 pickup stations operated within the city. To help fund the car pool, the MIA held mass gatherings at various African American churches where donations were collected and members heard news about the success of the boycott.

Roots in Brown v Board

Fred Gray, member and lawyer of the MIA, organized a legal challenge to the city ordinances requiring segregation on Montgomery buses. Before 1954, the Plessy v. Ferguson decision ruled that segregation was constitutional as long as it was equal. Yet, the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawed segregation in public schools. Therefore, it opened the door to challenge segregation in other areas as well, such as city busing. Gray gathered Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith to challenge the constitutionality of the city busing laws. All four of the women had been previously mistreated on the city buses because of their race. The case took the name Browder v. Gayle. Gray argued their 14th Amendment right to equal protection of the law was violated, the same argument made in the Brown v. Board of Education case.

On June 5, 1956, a three-judge U.S. District Court ruled 2-1 that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional. The majority cited Brown v. Board of Education as a legal precedent for desegregation and concluded, “In fact, we think that Plessy v. Ferguson has been impliedly, though not explicitly, overruled,…there is now no rational basis upon which the separate but equal doctrine can be validly applied to public carrier transportation...”

The city of Montgomery appealed the U.S. District Court decision to the U.S. Supreme Court and continued to practice segregation on city busing.

For nearly a year, buses were virtually empty in Montgomery. Boycott supporters walked to work--as many as eight miles a day--or they used a sophisticated system of carpools with volunteer drivers and dispatchers. Some took station-wagon "rolling taxis" donated by local churches.

Montgomery City Lines lost between 30,000 and 40,000 bus fares each day during the boycott. The bus company that operated the city busing had suffered financially from the seven month long boycott and the city became desperate to end the boycott. Local police began to harass King and other MIA leaders. Car pool drivers were arrested and taken to court for petty traffic violations. Despite all the harassment, the boycott remained over 90% successful. African Americans took pride in the inconveniences caused by limited transportation. One elderly African American woman replied that, “My soul has been tired for a long time. Now my feet are tired, and my soul is resting.” The promise of equality declared in Brown v. Board of Education for Montgomery African Americans helped motivate them to continue the boycott.

The company reluctantly desegregated its buses only after November 13, 1956, when the Supreme Court ruled Alabama's bus segregation laws unconstitutional.

Beginning a Movement

The Montgomery bus boycott began the modern Civil Rights Movement and established Martin Luther King Jr. as its leader. King instituted the practice of massive non-violent civil disobedience to injustice, which he learned from studying Gandhi. Montgomery, Alabama became the model of massive non-violent civil disobedience that was practiced in such places as Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis. Even though the Civil Rights Movement was a social and political movement, it was influenced by the legal foundation established from Brown v. Board of Education.

Brown overturned the long held practice of the “separate but equal” doctrine established by Plessy. From then on, any legal challenge on segregation cited Brown as a precedent for desegregation. Without Brown, it is impossible to know what would have happened in Montgomery during the boycott.

The boycott would have been difficult to continue because the city would have won its challenge to shut down the car pool. Without the car pool and without any legal precedent to end segregation, the legal process could have lasted years. Those involved in the boycott might have lost hope and given up with the lack of progress. However, the precedent established by Brown gave boycotters hope that a legal challenge would successfully end segregation on city buses. Therefore, the influence of Brown on the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Civil Rights Movement is undeniable. King described Brown’s influence as, “To all men of good will, this decision came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of human captivity. It came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of colored people throughout the world who had had a dim vision of the promised land of freedom and justice . . . this decision came as a legal and sociological deathblow to an evil that had occupied the throne of American life for several decades.”

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Montgomery Bus Boycott | Sample Answer

Home Lessons IBDP History IB History Paper 1: Key Lesson Topics and Classroom Resources Prescribed subject 4: Rights and protest Civil Rights Movement in the United States (1954–1965) Montgomery Bus Boycott

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The “Montgomery Bus Boycott” is a vibrant history worksheet that brings the past to life in an accessible, engaging, and informative way. This worksheet invites your students to step back into the era of segregation and Jim Crow laws, helping them understand the significant events that led to one of American history’s most memorable acts of peaceful resistance.

The worksheet starts by setting the scene. Students will explore the era of segregation and how it affected everyday life. They’ll understand why Rosa Parks’ simple but powerful act of defiance on a Montgomery city bus became a spark that ignited a nationwide movement for civil rights.

Students will learn about the extraordinary people behind the scenes, like E.D. Nixon, Ralph David Abernathy, and Martin Luther King Jr., a young pastor whose leadership turned a local protest into a landmark event in American history. They can use primary sources to explore these stories and deepen their understanding.

A key part of the lesson is understanding the strategies that led to the remarkable success of the boycott. Students will explore how careful planning, coordination, and community spirit helped keep the boycott going for over a year, instilling a sense of hope and optimism about the power of peaceful resistance.

This lesson doesn’t shy away from the darker side of history either. Students will delve into the intimidation tactics used by segregation supporters and the courage of those who stood up to them. By looking at primary sources, students can understand the gravity of the situation and the importance of learning from it, feeling a sense of responsibility to prevent such events from happening again.

The “Montgomery Bus Boycott” worksheet is the perfect resource for teachers who want to give their students a memorable, in-depth, and meaningful exploration of a defining moment in American history. This engaging and student-friendly lesson plan brings history to life in your classroom, igniting a love of learning that will last a lifetime.

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Immerse your students in the vibrant world of ancient Greece with the captivating lesson plan “My Life in Ancient Greece.” […]

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