The Daily News December 11, 1957

The Montgomery bus system

The boycott started on December 5, 1955. Which is currently taking

place in Montgomery, Alabama. This all started when African

Americans refused to ride city buses, to protest segregated seating.

Rosa Parks
The leaders and major players during the Montgomery bus boycott

On December 1, 1955 rosa parks took the bus

included rosa parks, an activist, Martin Luther King Jr., Jo Ann

home after a long day from work. Although she

Robinson, the president of the women’s political council. sat in the “black” section, the bus driver told her

to give up her seat to a white man. Parks

wouldn’t budge and she was later arrested on

that day.
Due to Jim Crow laws, racial segregation was imposed in public facilities which also

included public transportation. Bus and train companies enforced seating policies
"I'm tired of being treated like a second-

with separate sections for blacks and white. A year ago in 1954, a group of black
class citizen."
professionals turned their attention to Jim Crow practices on the Montgomery city

buses. In the meeting with the mayor of Montgomery. Mayor W. A Gayle in march of

1954, the black council’s members outlined the changes they wanted for

Montgomery’s bus system:

1. No one standing over empty seats

2. A decree that black individuals not be made to

pay at the front of the bus and enter from the

rear
3. A policy that would require buses to stop at

every corner in black residential areas, as they

Martin Luther King Jr.

did in white communities
However, the meeting failed in producing any
After Martin Luther King Jr. moved to Montgomery with his

meaningful changes. wife to become a preacher. He was the president of the

Montgomery improvement association, which coordinated

the boycott. He used the leadership abilities he had gained

from his religious background and academic training to

forge a distinctive protest strategy that involved the

mobilization of black churches and skillful appeals for white

support. Being the spokesman of the boycott, MLK had

many people who wanted to kill him.

The Montgomery improvement association
It was formed on December 1, 1955, and Reverend Ralph

Abernathy came up with the name. This group, along with

the National Association of the Advancement of Colored

People, coordinate the boycott along with other protests to

stop segregation.

Goals and strategies

impact of the Montgomery boycott In 1954, the decisions made on the Brown

vs. Board of Education by the Supreme

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign started in 1955 in

Montgomery, Alabama, intended to oppose the city's policy of racial segregation on its public transit
Court started different tactics. The primary

system. The ensuing struggle lasted from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and led to a
strategies were mainly bus boycotts, sit-

United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring

segregated buses unconstitutional. Pressure increased across the country, and on June 4, 1956, the
ins, freedom rides, and social movements.

federal district court ruled that Alabama's racial segregation laws for buses were unconstitutional.
The black community in the Montgomery

However, an appeal kept the segregation intact, and the boycott continued until, finally, on

November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling. This victory led to a city

Bus Boycott case had freedom rides,

ordinance that allowed black bus passengers to sit virtually anywhere they wanted, and the boycott where they thought of and gave different

officially ended on December 20, 1956. The boycott of the buses had lasted for 381 days. Martin

ways of transportation, and bus boycotts,

Luther King Jr. capped off the victory with a magnanimous speech to encourage acceptance of the

decision. The boycott resulted in the U.S. civil rights movement receiving one of its first victories and
where they stop riding public

gave Martin Luther King Jr. the national attention that made him one of the prime leaders of the
transportation.
cause.

"The boycott ended on December 20, 1956, 381 days after it had begun.
The buses in

Montgomery were now integrated."