Advocating the Dream: 7 notable mass gatherings of the Civil Rights Movement
Montgomery Bus Boycott — 1955-1956
The Montgomery Bus Boycott came in response to the 1955 arrest of Rosa Parks when she decided to sit in the whites only front of a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
The boycott against segregated buses lasted over a year, with it being coordinated by the Montgomery Improvement Association and its president, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Boycott participants resisted pressure from both segregationist officials and violent actors, as the homes of King and local civil rights activist E. D. Nixon were bombed in early 1956.
Finally, the boycott ended after the United States Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling declaring that the segregated public transportation of Montgomery was unconstitutional.
According to The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, the boycott was a highly influential action for the movement.
“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,” explained the Institute.
