Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was an important episode in the U.S. civil rights movement. The campaign began when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The boycott resulted in the Supreme Court ruling that Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses was unconstitutional.
Asked in History of the United States, Mississippi, Rosa Parks, Montgomery Bus Boycott
When was the Macomb Mississippi bus incident?

Rosa Parks, the "mother of the civil rights movement" was one of
the most important citizens of the 20th century. Mrs. Parks was a
seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama when, in December of 1955, she
refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. The
bus driver had her arrested. She was tried and convicted of
violating a local ordinance. Her act sparked a citywide boycott of
the bus system by blacks that lasted more than a year. The boycott
raised an unknown clergyman named Martin Luther King, Jr., to
national prominence and resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court decision
outlawing segregation on city buses. Over the next four decades,
she helped make her fellow Americans aware of the history of the
civil rights struggle. This pioneer in the struggle for racial
equality was the recipient of innumerable honors, including the
Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize and the Presidential
Medal of Freedom. Her example remains an inspiration to
freedom-loving people everywhere.
Asked in Montgomery Bus Boycott
How many years did the Montgomery bus boycott last?

It lasted a little more than one year.
The Montgomery bus boycott began on December 5, 1955, a few days
after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give her bus seat to
a white man, and ended on December 20, 1956, after the Supreme
Court declared segregation on public transportation
unconstitutional. In all, the boycott lasted 381 days, or 1 year
and 16 days.
Asked in Montgomery Bus Boycott
Whose arrest led to the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 and 1956?

Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, for refusing
to give up her bus seat to a white man. Ms. Parks was
well-respected within the African-American community, arousing
outrage at the way she was treated by the bus company and police.
African-American community leaders, led by Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., met to discuss the situation on December 4, and planned a
one-day boycott of the Montgomery public transit system for
December 5, 1955. What started as a one-day event eventually
stretched 381 days, until December 20, 1956, as the community
determined not to ride the buses again until they were
integrated.
Rosa Parks unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the
segregation law in the Alabama state courts, where the appeals
process threatened to drag on for years.
Local attorneys Fred Gray and Charles Langford consulted with NAACP
Legal Defense Fund attorneys, Robert Carter and Thurgood Marshall,
whose successful campaign against segregation in education lead to
the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education,
(1954). Carter and Marshall suggested choosing a new group of
plaintiffs who had been discriminated against and abused by the
busing company.
The resulting suit, Browder v. Gayle, (1956), resulted in
the Supreme Court affirming the US District Court for the Middle
District of Alabama's ruling that the bus segregation was
unconstitutional.
For more information about Browder v. Gayle, (1956) and Rosa
Parks' court cases, see Related Questions, below.
Asked in Montgomery Bus Boycott
Name five people who lead the Montgomery bus boycott?

Jo Ann Robinson (President, Women's Political Council)
E. D. Nixon (President, local chapter of NAACP)
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Elected President of the Montgomery
Improvement Association)
Ralph Abernathy (Vice-President of association)
Johnnie Carr (civil rights leader, succeeded Dr. King as
President)
To view a list of other important participants, see Related
Questions, below.
Asked in Montgomery Bus Boycott
Who was involved in the Montgomery bus boycott?

Arrested on Segregated Bus
Rosa Parks (seamstress, former NAACP secretary)
Rosa Parks' Attorney
Clifford Durr
Original Organizers of Boycott
Jo Ann Robinson (President, Women's Political Council)
E. D. Nixon (President, local chapter of NAACP)
Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA)
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Elected President-Chairman)
Ralph Abernathy (Vice-President of association)
Johnnie Carr (civil rights leader, succeeded Dr. King as
President)
Robert S. Graetz (secretary of organization)
Coretta Scott King
Mother Pollard
Bayard Rustin (civil rights leader, advised King on Gandhian
peaceful resistance)
L. Roy Bennett (first vice-president of MIA, succeeded by Ralph
Abernathy)
Moses W. Jones (second vice-president)
Erna Dungee (financial secretary)
U. J. Fields (recording secretary)
W. J. Powell (succeeded U. J. Fields as recording secretary)
E. N. French (corresponding secretary)
C. W. Lee (assistant treasurer)
A. W. Wilson (parliamentarian)
Reverend R. J. Glasco
Rev. L. Roy Bennett
Rev. J. W. Hayes
Rev. H. H. Hubbard
Rev. J. C. Parker
Glenn Smiley
Maude Ballou
Fred Gray (founding member MIA)
Rev. Robert E. Hughes (negotiator)
Lillie Thomas Armstrong Hunter
Vernon Johns
Rufus Lewis (nominated King as President of MIA)
Thomas Mboya
Solomon Seay
Robert D. Nesbitt (executive board member, treasurer)
Sandy Frederick Ray
Lawrence Reddick (History Committee)
T. Y. Rogers
Gardner Taylor
Irene West
Mary Fair Burks
Uretta Adair
Juliette Hampton Morgan
Rev. Joseph Lowery
Virginia Durr
N. W. Walton (History Committee)
J. E. Pierce (History Committee)
Jo Ann Robinson (founder, see above, History Committee)
Rev. B. J. Simms (Transportation Dept.)
(total MIA membership alleged to be 40,000-50,000)
Browder v. Gayle, (1956)
Plaintiffs of Browder v. Gayle
Aurelia Browder
Claudette Colvin
Susie McDonald
Mary Louise Smith
Attorneys for Plaintiffs
Fred Gray
Charles Langford
Charles Carter (NAACP, New York)
Advisors to Attorneys, Browder v. Gayle
Robert Carter (NAACP Legal Defense Fund)
Thurgood Marshall (NAACP Legal Defense Fund)
Defendants
City of Montgomery, William Gayle, Mayor
Alabama Public Service Commission
Montgomery Board of Commissioners
Chief of Police (unnamed)
Montgomery City Lines, Inc.
Mr. Blake (bus driver)
Mr. Cleere (bus driver)
Defense Attorneys
Walter Knabe (Montgomery City Attorney)
John Patterson (Alabama Attorney General)
US District Court for Middle District of Alabama
Judges
Judge Johnson (Majority, for Plaintiffs)
Judge Rives (Majority, for Plaintiffs)
Judge Lynne (Dissenting)
US Supreme Court (Affirmed, unanimous)
Chief Justice Earl Warren
Justice Hugo Black
Justice Stanley Forman Reed
Justice Felix Frankfurter
Justice William O. Douglas
Justice Harold Hitz Burton
Justice Tom C. Clark
Justice John Marshall Harlan II
Justice William Brennan, Jr.
Alabama v. M. L. King, (1956)
Plaintiff of Alabama v. M. L. King
State of Alabama
Prosecuting Attorneys
William Thetford
Robert B. Stewart
Maury D. Smith
Defendant of Alabama v. M. L. King
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Conspiracy charges)
Defense Attorneys
Arthur D. Shores (NAACP)
Fred Gray
Charles Langford
Peter A. Hall
Orzell Billingsley
Known Witnesses for Defense
Thelma Williams Glass
Georgia Gilmore
Martha K. Walker
Stella Brooks
Henrietta Brinson
Gladys Moore
Known Witnesses for Prosecution
Joe Azbell (journalist)
Bunny Honicker (journalist)
Montgomery Circuit Court Judge
Judge Eugene Carter
Provided Financial Support for Boycott
and Legal Defense George Dennis Sale Kelsey
Stanley Levinson
Chester Bliss Bowles
Archibald Carey
NAACP
Ralph Helstein
Roy Wilkins
Vivan Mason
James Peck
Charles C. Digs (House of Representatives, MI)
William H. Gray
Joseph Jackson
In Friendship
(others)
Fundraising Concert
Duke Ellington
Harry Belafonte
Asked in Montgomery Bus Boycott
How did Rosa Parks spark the Montgomery bus boycott?

Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, for refusing to
give up her bus seat to a white man. Ms. Parks was well-respected
within the African-American community, arousing outrage at the way
she was treated by the bus company and police. African-American
community leaders met to discuss the situation on December 4, and
planned a one-day boycott of the Montgomery public transit system
for December 5, 1955. What started as a one-day event eventually
stretched 381 days, until December 20, 1956, as the community
determined not to ride the buses again until they were
integrated.
The original organizers were Jo Ann Robinson, an English instructor
at Alabama State College and President of Montgomery's Women's
Political Council, and E. D. Nixon, President of the Montgomery
chapter of the NAACP. During the meeting, the group formed a new
alliance, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), to which
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was elected President and leader of the
new civil rights movement.
Rosa Parks unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the
segregation law in the Alabama state courts, where the appeals
process threatened to drag on for years.
Local attorneys Fred Gray and Charles Langford consulted with NAACP
Legal Defense and Education Fund attorneys, Robert Carter and
Thurgood Marshall, whose successful campaign against segregation in
education lead to the US Supreme Court decision in Brown v.
Board of Education, (1954). Carter and Marshall suggested
choosing a new group of plaintiffs who had been discriminated
against and abused by the busing company.
The resulting suit, Browder v. Gayle, (1956), resulted in
the Supreme Court affirming the US District Court for the Middle
District of Alabama's ruling that the bus segregation was
unconstitutional.
For more information about Browder v. Gayle, (1956) and Rosa
Parks' court cases, see Related Questions, below.
Asked in Montgomery Bus Boycott
Why did the Montgomery bus boycott last so long?

The reason the Montgomery bus boycott lasted more than a year,
from December 5, 1955 until December 20, 1956, is that the city
refused to integrate buses until the US Supreme Court declared its
policy was unconstitutional in the case of Browder v. Gayle,
(1956). Although the Court's decision was released on November 13,
1956, the city didn't desegregate until it was served with a court
order on December 20.
Asked in Montgomery Bus Boycott
Why did the Montgomery bus boycott happen?

The trigger event was the arrest of the black woman Rosa Parks
for refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. In a
later interview, Rosa Parks said:
I did not want to be mistreated, I did not want to be deprived of a
seat that I had paid for. It was just time... The more we gave in,
the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more
oppressive it became. Apparently others felt the same. The night
Rosa Parks was arrested, this flyer went out to the black
community:
Another woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she
refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to
sit down... This has to be stopped. Negroes have rights too,
for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not
operate... We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off
the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. A
church meeting the next day, led by Martin Luther King, proposed a
citywide boycott of public transport. Enough blacks were fed up for
the boycott to be a success; the public transport system lost so
many passengers it came in serious economic trouble.
The White Citizen's Council fought back by firebombing the house of
Martin Luther King and several black churches, and arrested 156
boycotters for "hindering" the buses, among them King who was
sentenced to more than a year in jail. This brought nationwide
attention, and the Supreme Court eventually ruled that the racial
segregation laws were unconstitutional.
As for "why" compressed to a couple of sentences: Obviously because
blacks didn't like being second-class citizens, and because there
had been other civil rights protests elsewhere, enough to give the
feeling that they didn't necessarily have to accept it. As Rosa put
it, "it was just time...".
See related links.
Asked in Montgomery Bus Boycott
Why was Dr. King arrested during the Montgomery bus boycott?

Dr. King and 89 other community leaders were indicted on charges
of violating a 1921 Conspiracy law that prohibited boycotting
lawful businesses. Dr. King was found guilty of conspiracy, but
none of the others went to trial. King was fined $500 plus $500
court costs, or sentenced to 386 days in jail.
Dr. King decided to appeal the case, converting the sentence
into 386 days in jail; however, he remained out on his own
recognizance while the matter was under consideration. The Alabama
Court of Appeals rejected King's hearing in April 1957, because his
lawyers missed the 60-day filing deadline. He ultimately paid the
the fine, in December 1957.
The case related to the Montgomery bus boycott that reached the
US Supreme Court was Browder v. Gayle, (1956). Dr. King
wasn't a party to that suit.
Case:
State of Alabama v. M. L. King, Jr., (1956)
For more information about Browder v. Gayle, (1956) and
related information, see Related Questions, below.
Asked in Montgomery Bus Boycott
When was the Montgomery bus boycott organized?

Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, for refusing to
give up her bus seat to a white man. Ms. Parks was well-respected
within the African-American community, arousing outrage at the way
she was treated by the bus company and police. African-American
community leaders met to discuss the situation on December 4,
1955, and planned a one-day boycott of the Montgomery public
transit system for the next day. What started as a single event
eventually stretched 381 days, until December 20, 1956, as the
community determined not to ride the buses again until they were
integrated.
The original organizers were Jo Ann Robinson, an English instructor
at Alabama State College and President of Montgomery's Women's
Political Council, and E. D. Nixon, President of the Montgomery
chapter of the NAACP.
During the meeting, the group formed a new alliance, the Montgomery
Improvement Association (MIA), to which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
was elected Chairman and President. Dr. King subsequently became
the leader of the civil rights movement that lead to the US Supreme
Court ruling (Browder v. Gayle, (1956)) denouncing
segregation as unconstitutional.