LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Montgomery Bus Boycott: Seats
built 654 days ago
In December 1955, 42,000 black residents of Montgomery began a year-long boycott of city buses ( Montgomery Bus Boycott ) to protest racially segregated seating. After 381 days of taking taxis, carpooling, and walking the hostile streets of Montgomery, African Americans eventually won their fight to desegregate seating on public buses, not only in Montgomery, but throughout the United States.
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On Montgomery buses, the first four rows were reserved for whites. The rear was for blacks, who made up more than 75 percent of the bus system's riders. Blacks could sit in the middle rows until those seats were needed by whites. Then the blacks had to move to seats in the rear, stand, or, if there was no room, leave the bus. Even getting on the bus presented hurdles: If whites were already sitting in the front, blacks could board to pay the fare but then had to disembark and re-enter through the rear door.
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[H]er friends organised a bus boycott until the bus company agreed to seat all passengers on a ‘first come, first serve’ bases. Black customers made up 75% of the Company’s’ business, so the boycott was very damaging. Black passengers walked, shared lifts or took taxis to work.
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On December 1, 1955, one of the most well-known events of the civil rights period occurred, when Rosa Parks chose not to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. She was one of the major leaders of the civil rights movement, and started in the city of Birmingham.
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On the morning of Parks's trial, buses rumbled nearly empty through the streets of Montgomery. Police officers with shotguns roamed in search of imaginary "Negro goon squads" who they believed were forcing blacks to stay off the buses. After Parks lost her case and was convicted of violating the segregated seating laws, black leaders met again to organize an extension of the bus boycott. To this end, they formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and elected King as its president. That evening 7,000 blacks crowded into Holt Street Baptist Church, where King inspired the audience with his words: "There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression."
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On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks changed history forever when she refused to give up her seat on the Montgomery city bus. Take a look at the life and accomplishments of the woman who became known as "the mother of the Civil Rights Movement."
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