Montgomery bus boycott (dec 5, 1955 – dec 20, 1956)
Description:
The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a seminal event in the civil rights movement. The campaign lasted from December 5, 1955 — the Monday after Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person — to December 20, 1956, when the federal ruling Browder v. Gayle took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional.
Prior to the bus boycott, Jim Crow laws mandated the racial segregation of the Montgomery Bus Line. As a result of this segregation African Americans were not hired as drivers, were forced to ride in the back of the bus, and were frequently ordered to surrender their seats to white people even though black passengers made up 75% of the bus system's riders.
African-American passengers were also attacked by bus drivers and shortchanged and left stranded after paying their fares. A number of reasons have been given for why bus drivers acted in this manner, including racism, frustrations over labor disputes and labor conditions, and increased animosity towards blacks in reaction to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, with many of the drivers joining the White Citizens Councils as a result of the decision.
The boycott also took place within a larger statewide and national movement for civil rights, including court cases such as Morgan v. Virginia, the earlier Baton Rouge bus boycott, and the arrest of Claudette Colvin for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus.
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Atlantic Slave Trade & American Civil Rights
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