Essay On Montgomery Bus Boycott

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The Montgomery Bus Boycott and Segregation On Monday, December 5, 1955, the buses of Montgomery, Alabama had no black riders abroad (McWhorther 42). This is because of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a protest that lasted 381 days in the city of the Montgomery, Alabama. The history books and websites say that the boycott started on December 5, but some people claim that it started nine months before Rosa Parks’ arrest, when 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested for the same act (Montgomery Bus Boycott, n.d). The boycott ended on December 20, 1956, but it did not put out the fire that the African-American people had created. It marked the beginning of what is known as the Civil Rights Movement (McWhorther 44). Including the boycott ending and starting the Civil Rights Movement, on December 1, 1955 is when the boycott actually started. That evening, people were heading home from work and the buses were full, which meant that if there any whites left standing, like it or not, blacks had to stand and give their seats to them. Three black passengers obeyed. The fourth sitting with them, the seamstress [Rosa Parks], defiantly slid over to …show more content…

The black community of Montgomery had a major impact on reforming segregated America by not riding the buses for 381 days and for organizing car pools, walking long distances, and for remaining nonviolent even when harassed and beaten by angry whites (Bullard 19). Jo Ann Robinson and the Women’s political Council who immediately began to organize a bus boycott (Bullard 18). NAACP leader E.D. Nixon, who formed the Montgomery Improvement Association and selected a newcomer in town, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, to be the spokesman (Bullard 18). Finally, Attorney Fred D. Gray, who sued the city in U.S, District Court, seeking to have the busing segregation laws invalidated (Montgomery Bus Boycott,