BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955–1956 Rosa Parks and Montgomery Bus Boycott
Civil rights leaders focused on Montgomery Alabama, highlight extreme forms of segregation there. Local black leader Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955, refused to give up her seat on a public bus to make room for a white passenger; she was arrested and received national publicity, hailed as the "mother of the civil rights movement." Parks was secretary of the Montgomery NAACP chapter and had recently returned from a meeting at the Highlander Center in Tennessee where nonviolent civil disobedience as a strategy was taught. African-Americans gathered and organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott to demand a bus system in which passengers would be treated equally.[26] After the city rejected many of their suggested reforms, the NAACP, led by E.D. Nixon, pushed for full desegregation of public buses. With the support of most of Montgomery's 50,000 African Americans, the boycott lasted for 381 days, until the local ordinance segregating African Americans and whites on public buses was repealed. Ninety percent of African Americans in Montgomery partook in the boycotts, which reduced bus revenue significantly, as they comprised the majority of the riders. In November 1956, a federal court ordered Montgomery's buses desegregated and the boycott ended.[26]
Local leaders established the Montgomery Improvement Association to focus their efforts. Martin Luther King, Jr., was elected President of this organization. The lengthy protest attracted national attention for him and the city. His eloquent appeals to Christian brotherhood and American idealism created a positive impression on people both inside and outside the South.[16]
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