Analysis: The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Montgomery Bus Boycott The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a crucial part of the Civil Rights Movement. Lasting from December 1, 1955 to December 20, 1956, it was a time of protesting against the public buses to end racial segregation. It took over a year but the U.S. Supreme Court finally decided to make the segregation of city buses unconstitutional. This was not only a victory for the people of Alabama, but it also led to more participation in activism and civil rights movements all around the country.

In December 1955 Rosa Parks, the secretary of the Alabama NAACP, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to surrender her bus seat to a white man as was required by city law. In reaction to this arrest a group of black women called for an economic strike against the city buses in the form of a boycott. The decision to pursue the boycott followed an inspirational speech by Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–68), a young preacher who encouraged acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. The boycott lasted almost a year until the Supreme Court ruled the Montgomery bus law unconstitutional in late 1956”(Riggs). This solemnly paved the way for Martin Luther King to explain his

It was the largest political rally ever seen in the U.S. and had between 200,000 and 300,000 police and colored people, in which 80% of the participants were black. In this rally, Dr. King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Also, one of his famous boycotts he lead was the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It started after Rosa Parks, who was a secretary of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter, had refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus. She was then arrested after.

During John Lewis’s early life, the Montgomery Bus Boycott inspired him to get into the civil rights movement. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a protest based off of Rosa Parks refusing to get up for a white person. She was arrested and put into jail; her arrests sparked the

As a result of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, The United States legislators wrote the Southern Manifesto in 1956. They believed that the final result of Brown v. Board of Education, which stated that separate school facilities for black and white children were fundamentally unequal, was an abuse of the judicial power. The Southern Manifesto called for the exhaust of all the lawful things they can do in order to stop all the confusion that would come from school desegregation. The Manifesto also stated that the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution should limit the power of the Supreme Court when it comes to these types of issues.

These policies and laws were unfair and discriminatory towards people of color and change was desperately needed. The Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 to 1965 pushed the Civil

Montgomery Bus Boycott- In Montgomery, 1955, blacks were forced to sit in the back of the bus. One day Rosa Parks, a true hero, said no when asked to move to the back of the bus. She was arrested and that is when the boycott started. African American Men and Women didn’t ride the bus for more than a year.

King went through many obstacles as organizing protests. For example, white racial terrorists had bombed King’s home. The boycott had become a success in 1956, when the Supreme Court of the United States made Montgomery have equal seating privileges on public

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a fundamental part of desegregating buses and gaining better treatment for African-American bus riders. The Nashville Sit-ins helped to desegregate eating

“Fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested March 2,1955, and just seven months late eighteen-year-old Mary Louise Smith was arrested on October 21, 1955” (Sanders, Viv). The 1955 bus boycott was initiated by Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat to a white man. “In explaining why she did not move Parks’ said, “My feet were not tired, but i was tired-tired of unfair treatment”” (Sanders, Viv).

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was as big as it was , because of

When Rosa Park decided to not let her seat to a white in a public bus, she started what was later known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama, during the boycott Afro-American deiced to walk instead of using the public transportation. Almost 60% of the money earned by the bus company came from Afro-Americans, Park stated that she was “tired of giving in” and later became known as an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. The Greensboro sit-ins was an even more remarkable event when four student decided to sit on a ‘whites only’ counter at the local Woolworth drug store, they remained there, without service, until the store closed, for the following six day more student followed them in this non-violent strategy in different business stores until Woolworth closed its door, later on the students founded the SNCC. In May 1961, “Freedom writer” with the racially integrated Congress of Racial Equality boarded buses and braved attacks by southern white mobs for daring to desegregate interstate transportation, many white people helped in the proses, there were cases in which white stand and received the attacks of the mobs so the blacks could continue their travel .Most of the pacifist strategies started by Martin Luther King, in August of 1963 the March in Washington in which he followed with more than over 200,000 American gave his famous speech demanding for civil and economic right for Afro-Americans.

This became known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Bus companies began to loose tons of money because whites even began to join in. Eventually, buses desegregated so they would start gaining the money they were losing.

African Americans were suffering from the Jim Crows and grandfather clause that barred them from voting and equal access to public accommodations. Some notable historical events was the Montgomery Bus boycott and the Greensboro sit-ins. The Montgomery Bus boycotts occurred after the arrest of Rosa Parks after she sat in the white section of the bus. This incident has received national attention for the persistent of Rosa Parks to sit at the whites section. There has been boycotts leading after.

Because buses were segregated, many African Americans boycotted using buses. In Tallahassee, black students waved at the buses going by (Document 7). The lack of African Americans using the bus led to more empty buses, soon persuading the bus systems to integrate. The bus boycott in Tallahassee followed soon after the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott. After a year of not using the bus, the African Americans in Alabama were finally granted their right to sit wherever they pleased on the bus.