Montgomery Bus Boycott

On the evening Rosa Parks was arrested, E.D. Nixon, head of the local chapter of the NAACP, began plans to organize a boycott of Montgomery's city buses. Ads were placed in local papers and handbills were printed and distributed in black neighborhoods. Members of the African-American community were asked to stay off the buses Monday, December 5 th in protest of Rosa's arrest. People were encouraged to stay home from work or school, take a cab or walk to work. With most of the African-American community not riding the bus, organizers believed a longer boycott might be successful.

On Monday, December 5, 1955, a group of African-American community leaders gathered at Mt. Zion Church to discuss strategies. They determined that the effort required a new organization and strong leadership. They formed the "Montgomery Improvement Association" (MIA) and elected Montgomery newcomer Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The MIA believed that Rosa Parks' case provided an excellent opportunity to take further action to create real change.

With the success of Monday's refusal to ride the buses, the boycott continued. Some people carpooled. Others rode in African-American-operated cabs. Most of the estimated 40,000 African-American commuters walked, some as far as 20 miles to get to work.

Dozens of the Montgomery public buses sat idle for months, severely crippling the transit company's finances. But the boycott faced strong resistance, with some segregationists retaliating with violence. Black churches were burned and both Martin Luther King,Jr. and E.D. Nixon's homes were attacked. Other attempts were made to end the boycott as well. The taxi system used by the African-American community to help people get around had its insurance canceled. Other blacks were arrested for violating an old law prohibiting boycotts.

But the African-American community also took legal action. Armed with the Brown v. Board of Education decision that said separate but equal policies had no place in public education, a black legal team took the issue of segregation on public transit systems to federal court. In June of 1956, the court declared Alabama's racial segregation laws for public transit unconstitutional. The city appealed and on November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling.

With the transit company and downtown businesses suffering financial loss and the legal system ruling against them, the city of Montgomery had no choice but to lift the law requiring segregation on public buses. The combination of legal action, backed by the unrelenting determination of the African-American community made the 382-day Montgomery Bus Boycott one of the largest and most successful mass movements against racial segregation in history.