Montgomery bus boycott

1950s American protest against racial segregation

Montgomery bus boycott

Part of the Civil Rights Movement

Rosa Parks on a Montgomery bus on December 21, 1956, the day Montgomery's public transportation system was legally integrated. Behind Parks is Nicholas C. Chriss, a UPI reporter covering the event.

Date| December 5, 1955 – December 20, 1956 (1955-12-05 – 1956-12-20)
Location|

Montgomery, Alabama, U.S.

Caused by|

* Racial segregation on public transportation
* Successful 6-day Baton Rouge bus boycott
* Claudette Colvin's arrest
* Rosa Parks' arrest

Resulted in|

* Browder v. Gayle (1956)
* Emergence of Martin Luther King Jr.
* Inspired Tallahassee bus boycott
* Formation of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

Parties

* Women's Political Council (WPC)
* Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA)

* City Commission of Montgomery
* National City Lines
* Montgomery City Lines
* Montgomery Citizens Council

|

Lead figures

WPC member

* Jo Ann Robinson

MIA members

* Martin Luther King Jr.
* E.D. Nixon
* Rosa Parks
* Fred Gray

City Commission

* W. A. Gayle, President of the Commission (mayor)
* Frank Parks, Commissioner
* Clyde Sellers, Police Commissioner

National City Lines

* Kenneth E. Totten, vice president

Montgomery City Lines

* J.H. Bagley, manager
* Jack Crenshaw, attorney
* James F. Blake, bus driver

* v
* t
* e

Civil Rights Movement in Alabama

State of Alabama

* Alabama Pupil Placement Law
* NAACP v. Patterson
* NAACP v. Alabama
* United States v. Alabama
* Original Freedom Rides
* George Wallace's Inaugural Address
* United States v. Wallace
* Hamilton v. Alabama

City of Birmingham

* Bombingham
* Birmingham bus boycott
* First Bethel Baptist Church bombing
* Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham Board of Education
* Birmingham sit-ins
* Armstrong v. Birmingham Board of Education
* Anniston bus bombing
* Birmingham bus attack
* Gober v. City of Birmingham
* Birmingham campaign
* Children's Crusade
* Gaston Motel and King residence bombings
* Birmingham riot of 1963
* 16th Street Baptist Church bombing
* Shooting of Johnny Robinson
* Murder of Virgil Lamar Ware
* Katzenbach v. McClung
* Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham

City of Montgomery

* Montgomery bus boycott
* Browder v. Gayle
* Robert Graetz residence bombing
* Martin Luther King Jr. residence bombing
* Gilmore v. City of Montgomery
* Montgomery sit-ins
* Connecticut Freedom Ride
* New York Times Co. v. Sullivan
* Selma to Montgomery marches
* U.S. v. Montgomery County Board of Ed.
* Smith v. Young Men's Christian Association
* Gilmore v. City of Montgomery

City of Selma

* Selma to Montgomery marches
* Murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson
* Murder of James Reeb
* Murder of Viola Liuzzo

City of Tuscaloosa

* Lucy v. Adams
* University of Alabama desegregation crisis
* Stand in the Schoolhouse Door
* Bloody Tuesday

City of Tuskegee

* Tuskegee merchant boycott
* Alabama Act 140
* Tuskegee sit-ins
* Gomillion v. Lightfoot
* Tuskegee High School desegregation crisis
* Murder of Sammy Younge Jr.
* Lee v. Macon County Board of Education

Other localities

* Murder of Willie Edwards
* Murder of William Lewis Moore
* Murder of Willie Brewster
* Murder of Jonathan Daniels

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 foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States. The campaign lasted from December 5, 1955—the Monday after Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested for her refusal 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.[1]

## Background[edit]

See also: History of civil rights in the United States, Civil rights movement (1865–1896), and Civil rights movement (1896–1954)

Before 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.[2] Many bus drivers treated their black passengers poorly beyond the law: African-Americans were assaulted, shortchanged, and left stranded after paying their fares.[3]

The year before the bus boycott began, the Supreme Court decided unanimously, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The reaction by the white population of the Deep South was "noisy and stubborn".[4] Many white bus drivers joined the White Citizens' Council as a result of the decision.[5][6]

Although it is often framed as the start of the civil rights movement, the boycott occurred at the end of many black communities' struggles in the South to protect black women, such as Recy Taylor, from racial violence.[7] 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, among others, for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus.

### Previous transport and Bus boycotts in the United States[edit]

See also: Transport and bus boycotts in the United States

In 1841 Frederick Douglass and his friend James N. Buffum entered a train car reserved for white passengers in Lynn, Massachusetts, when the conductor ordered them to leave the car, they refused. Following the action, widespread organizing led Congress to approve the Civil Rights Act of 1875 which grant equal rights to Black citizens in public accommodations. In 1883 the Supreme Court overturned this victory declaring it unconstitutional.[8]

### Rape of Recy Taylor[edit]

Main article: Recy Taylor

On September 3, 1944, Recy Taylor, a black woman, was raped by six white men in Abbeville, Alabama.[9]: xv–xvii After investigating her case, Rosa Parks—along with E. D. Nixon, Rufus A. Lewis, and E. G. Jackson—organized a defense for Taylor in Montgomery. They mobilized nationwide support from labor unions, African-American organizations, and women's groups to form the Alabama Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor.[9]: 15 Although they did not succeed in obtaining justice in court for Taylor, the mobilization of the black community in Alabama set up social and political networks that enabled the success of the Montgomery bus boycott a decade later.[9]: 46–47

### Morgan v. Virginia decision[edit]

Main article: Morgan v. Virginia

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had accepted and litigated other cases, including that of Irene Morgan in 1946, which resulted in a victory in the Supreme Court on the grounds that segregated interstate bus lines violated the Commerce Clause.[10] That victory, however, overturned state segregation laws only insofar as they applied to travel in interstate commerce, such as interstate bus travel,[11] and Southern bus companies immediately circumvented the Morgan ruling by instituting their own Jim Crow regulations.[12] Further incidents continued to take place in Montgomery, including the arrest of Lillie Mae Bradford for disorderly conduct in May 1951 for allegedly refusing to leave the white passengers' section until the bus driver amended an incorrect charge on her transfer ticket.[13]

### Baton Rouge bus boycott[edit]

Main article: Baton Rouge bus boycott

On February 25, 1953, the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, city-parish council passed Ordinance 222 after the city saw protesting from African Americans when the council raised the city's bus fares.[14] The ordinance abolished race-based reserved seating requirements and allowed the admission of African Americans in the front sections of city buses if there were no white passengers present, but it still required African Americans to enter from the rear rather than the front of the buses.[15] However, the ordinance was largely unenforced by the city bus drivers. The drivers later went on strike after city authorities refused to arrest Rev. T. J. Jemison for sitting in a front row.[16] Four days after the strike began, Louisiana Attorney General and former Baton Rouge mayor Fred S. LeBlanc declared the ordinance unconstitutional under Louisiana state law.[15] This led Rev. Jemison to organize what historians believe to be the first bus boycott of the civil rights movement.[17] The boycott ended after eight days when an agreement was reached to only retain the first two front and back rows as racially reserved seating.[14]

### Arrest of Claudette Colvin[edit]

Main article: Claudette Colvin

Black activists had begun to build a case to challenge state bus segregation laws around the arrest of 15-year-old Claudette Colvin, a student at Booker T. Washington High School in Montgomery. On March 2, 1955, Colvin was handcuffed, arrested, and forcibly removed from a public bus when she refused to give up her seat to a white man. At the time, Colvin was an active member in the NAACP Youth Council, where Rosa Parks was an advisor.[18] Colvin's legal case formed the core of Browder v. Gayle, which ended the Montgomery bus boycott when the Supreme Court ruled on it in December 1956.

### Murder of Emmett Till; trial and acquittal of the accused[edit]

Main article: Emmett Till

In August 1955, four months before Parks's refusal to give up a seat on the bus that led to the Montgomery bus boycott, a 14-year-old African American from Chicago named Emmett Till was murdered by two white men, John W. Milam and Roy Bryant. The picture of his brutally beaten body in the open-casket funeral that his mother requested was widely publicized, specifically by the weekly newspaper Jet, which circulated in much of the black community in the North. His accused killers were acquitted the following month. There was massive outrage at this verdict both domestically and internationally. In an interview on January 24, 1956, published in Look magazine, the two men admitted to murdering Till.[19]

### Keys v. Carolina Coach Co. decision[edit]

Main article: Keys v. Carolina Coach Co.

In November 1955, three weeks before Parks's defiance of Jim Crow laws in Montgomery, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), in response to a complaint filed by Women's Army Corps Private Sarah Keys, closed the legal loophole left by the Morgan ruling in a landmark case known as Keys v. Carolina Coach Co..[20] The ICC prohibited individual carriers from imposing their own segregation rules on interstate travelers, declaring that to do so was a violation of the anti-discrimination provision of the Interstate Commerce Act. However, neither the Supreme Court's Morgan ruling nor the ICC's Keys ruling addressed the matter of Jim Crow travel within the individual states.[21]

## History[edit]

Under the system of segregation used on Montgomery buses, the ten front seats were reserved for white people at all times. The ten back seats were supposed to be reserved for black people at all times. The middle section of the bus consisted of sixteen unreserved seats for white and black people on a segregated basis.[22] White people filled the middle seats from the front to back, and black people filled seats from the back to front until the bus was full. If other black people boarded the bus, they were required to stand. If another white person boarded the bus, then everyone in the black row nearest the front had to get up and stand so that a new row for white people could be created; it was illegal for white and black people to sit next to each other. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white person, she was sitting in the first row of the middle section.[23]

Often when boarding the buses, black people were required to pay at the front, get off, and reenter the bus through a separate door at the back.[24] Occasionally, bus drivers would drive away before black passengers were able to reboard.[25] National City Lines owned the Montgomery Bus Line at the time of the Montgomery bus boycott.[26] Under the leadership of Walter Reuther, the United Auto Workers donated almost $5,000 (equivalent to $55,000 in 2022) to the boycott's organizing committee.[27]

### Rosa Parks[edit]

Main article: Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks being fingerprinted by Deputy Sheriff D.H. Lackey after her arrest for boycotting public transportation

Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was a seamstress by profession; she was also the secretary for the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. Twelve years before her history-making arrest, Parks was stopped from boarding a city bus by driver James F. Blake, who ordered her to board at the rear door and then drove off without her. Parks vowed never again to ride a bus driven by Blake. As a member of the NAACP, Parks was an investigator assigned to cases of sexual assault. In 1945, she was sent to Abbeville, Alabama, to investigate the gang rape of Recy Taylor. The protest that arose around the Taylor case was the first instance of a nationwide civil rights protest, and it laid the groundwork for the Montgomery bus boycott.[28]

A diagram showing where Rosa Parks sat in the unreserved section at the time of her arrest

In 1955, Parks completed a course in "Race Relations" at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, where nonviolent civil disobedience had been discussed as a tactic. On December 1, 1955, Parks was sitting in the foremost row in which black people could sit (in the middle section). When a white man boarded the bus, the bus driver told everyone in her row to move back. At that moment, Parks realized that she was again on a bus driven by Blake. While all of the other black people in her row complied, Parks refused, and she was arrested[29] for failing to obey the driver's seat assignments, as city ordinances did not explicitly mandate segregation but did give the bus driver authority to assign seats. Found guilty on December 5,[30] Parks was fined $10 plus a court cost of $4[31] (combined total equivalent to $153 in 2022), and she appealed.[32] This movement also sparked riots leading up to the 1956 Sugar Bowl.[33]

### E. D. Nixon[edit]

Some action against segregation had been in the works for some time before Parks' arrest, under the leadership of E. D. Nixon, president of the local NAACP chapter and a member of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Nixon intended that her arrest be a test case to allow Montgomery's black citizens to challenge segregation on the city's public buses. With this goal, community leaders had been waiting for the right person to be arrested, a person who would anger the black community into action, who would agree to test the segregation laws in court, and who, most importantly, was "above reproach". When Colvin was arrested in March 1955, Nixon thought he had found the perfect person, but the teenager turned out to be pregnant. Nixon later explained, "I had to be sure that I had somebody I could win with." Parks was a good candidate because of her employment and marital status, along with her good standing in the community.[34][35]

Between Parks' arrest and trial, Nixon organized a meeting of local ministers at Martin Luther King Jr.'s church. Though Nixon could not attend the meeting because of his work schedule, he arranged that no election of a leader for the proposed boycott would take place until his return. When he returned, he caucused with Ralph Abernathy and Rev. E.N. French to name the association to lead the boycott to the city (they selected the "Montgomery Improvement Association", "MIA"), and they selected King (Nixon's choice) to lead the boycott. Nixon wanted King to lead the boycott because the young minister was new to Montgomery and the city fathers had not had time to intimidate him. At a subsequent, larger meeting of ministers, Nixon's agenda was threatened by the clergymen's reluctance to support the campaign. Nixon was indignant, pointing out that their poor congregations worked to put money into the collection plates so these ministers could live well, and when those congregations needed the clergy to stand up for them, those comfortable ministers refused to do so. Nixon threatened to reveal the ministers' cowardice to the black community, and King spoke up, denying he was afraid to support the boycott. King agreed to lead the MIA, and Nixon was elected its treasurer.[36]

### Boycott[edit]

The National City Lines bus, No. 2857, on which Rosa Parks rode before she was arrested (a GM "old-look" transit bus, serial number 1132), is now on exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum.

On the night of Parks' arrest, the Women's Political Council, led by Jo Ann Robinson, printed and circulated a flyer throughout Montgomery's black community that read as follows:

> Another woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down. It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing. This has to be stopped. Negroes have rights too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negro, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother. This woman's case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don't ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday. You can afford to stay out of school for one day if you have no other way to go except by bus. You can also afford to stay out of town for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off all buses Monday.[31][37]

The next morning there was a meeting led by the new Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) head, King, where a group of 16 to 18 people gathered at the Mt. Zion Church to discuss boycott strategies. At that time Rosa Parks was introduced but not asked to speak, despite a standing ovation and calls from the crowd for her to speak; she asked someone if she should say something, but they replied, "Why, you've said enough."[38] A citywide boycott of public transit was proposed, with three demands: 1) courteous treatment by bus operators, 2) passengers seated on a first-come, first-served basis, with black people seated in the back half and white people seated in the front half, and 3) black people would be employed as bus operators on routes predominately taken by black people.[39]

This demand was a compromise for the leaders of the boycott, who believed that the city of Montgomery would be more likely to accept it rather than a demand for full integration of the buses. In this respect, the MIA leaders followed the pattern of 1950s boycott campaigns in the Deep South, including the successful boycott a few years earlier of service stations in Mississippi for refusing to provide restrooms for Black people. The organizer of that campaign, T. R. M. Howard of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, had spoken on the lynching of Emmett Till as King's guest at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church only four days before Parks's arrest. Parks was in the audience and later said that Emmett Till was on her mind when she refused to give up her seat.[40]

The MIA's demand for a fixed dividing line was to be supplemented by a requirement that all bus passengers receive courteous treatment by bus operators, be seated on a first-come, first-served basis, and that Black people be employed as bus drivers.[41] The proposal was passed, and the boycott was to commence the following Monday. To publicize the impending boycott it was advertised at black churches throughout Montgomery the following Sunday.[42]

On Saturday, December 3, it was evident that the black community would support the boycott, and very few Black people rode the buses that day. On December 5, a mass meeting was held at the Holt Street Baptist Church to determine if the protest would continue.[43] Given twenty minutes notice, King gave a speech[44] asking for a bus boycott and attendees enthusiastically agreed. Starting December 7, J Edgar Hoover's FBI noted the "agitation among negroes" and tried to find "derogatory information" about King.[45]

The boycott proved extremely effective, with enough riders lost to the city transit system to cause serious economic distress. Martin Luther King later wrote, "[a] miracle had taken place." Instead of riding buses, boycotters organized a system of carpools, with car owners volunteering their vehicles or themselves driving people to various destinations. Some white housewives also drove their black domestic servants to work. When the city pressured local insurance companies to stop insuring cars used in the carpools, the boycott leaders arranged policies at Lloyd's of London.[46]

Black taxi drivers charged ten cents per ride, a fare equal to the cost to ride the bus, in support of the boycott. When word of this reached city officials on December 8, the order went out to fine any cab driver who charged a rider less than 45 cents. In addition to using private motor vehicles, some people used non-motorized means to get around, such as cycling, walking, or even riding mules or driving horse-drawn buggies. Some people also hitchhiked. During rush hours, sidewalks were often crowded. As the buses received few, if any, passengers, their officials asked the City Commission to allow stopping service to black communities.[47] Across the nation, black churches raised money to support the boycott and collected new and slightly used shoes to replace the tattered footwear of Montgomery's black citizens, many of whom walked everywhere rather than ride the buses and submit to Jim Crow laws.[citation needed]

In response, opposing whites swelled the ranks of the White Citizens' Council, the membership of which doubled during the course of the boycott. The councils sometimes resorted to violence: King's and Abernathy's houses were firebombed, as were four black Baptist churches. Boycotters were often physically attacked. After the attack at King's house, he gave a speech to the 300 angry African Americans who had gathered outside. He said:

> If you have weapons, take them home; if you do not have them, please do not seek to get them. We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence. We must meet violence with nonviolence. Remember the words of Jesus: "He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword". We must love our white brothers, no matter what they do to us. We must make them know that we love them. Jesus still cries out in words that echo across the centuries: "Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; pray for them that despitefully use you". This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love. Remember, if I am stopped, this movement will not stop, because God is with the movement. Go home with this glowing faith and this radiant assurance.[48]

King and 88 other boycott leaders and carpool drivers were indicted[49] for conspiring to interfere with a business under a 1921 ordinance.[50] Rather than wait to be arrested, they turned themselves in as an act of defiance.[51]

King was ordered to pay a $500 fine or serve 386 days in jail. He ended up spending two weeks in jail. The move backfired by bringing national attention to the protest. King commented on the arrest by saying: "I was proud of my crime. It was the crime of joining my people in a nonviolent protest against injustice."[52]

Also important during the bus boycott were grassroots activist groups that helped to catalyze both fund-raising and morale. Groups such as the Club from Nowhere helped to sustain the boycott by finding new ways of raising money and offering support to boycott participants.[53] Many members of these organizations were women and their contributions to the effort have been described by some as essential to the success of the bus boycott.[54][55]

### Victory[edit]

Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition[56] "381 Days: The Montgomery Bus Boycott" at the Washington State History Museum

Pressure increased across the country. The related civil suit was heard in federal district court and, on June 5, 1956, the court ruled in Browder v. Gayle (1956) that Alabama's racial segregation laws for buses were unconstitutional.[57] As the state appealed the decision, the boycott continued. The case moved on to the United States Supreme Court. On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court upheld the district court's ruling.[58][59]

The bus boycott officially ended on December 20, 1956, after 382[60] days. The Montgomery bus boycott resounded far beyond the desegregation of public buses. It stimulated activism and participation from the South in the national Civil Rights Movement and gave King national attention as a rising leader.[56][61]

## Aftermath[edit]

White backlash against the court victory was quick, brutal, and, in the short term, effective.[62][63] Two days after the inauguration of desegregated seating, someone fired a shotgun through the front door of Martin Luther King's home. A day later, on Christmas Eve, white men attacked a black teenager as she exited a bus. Four days after that, two buses were fired upon by snipers. In one sniper incident, a pregnant woman was shot in both legs. On January 10, 1957, bombs destroyed five black churches and the home of Reverend Robert S. Graetz, one of the few white Montgomerians who had publicly sided with the MIA.[64][65]

The City suspended bus service for several weeks on account of the violence. According to legal historian Randall Kennedy, "When the violence subsided and service was restored, many black Montgomerians enjoyed their newly recognized right only abstractly ... In practically every other setting, Montgomery remained overwhelmingly segregated ..."[65] On January 23, a group of Klansmen (who would later be charged for the bombings) lynched a black man, Willie Edwards, on the pretext that he was dating a white woman.[66]

The city's elite moved to strengthen segregation in other areas, and in March 1957 passed an ordinance making it "unlawful for white and colored persons to play together, or, in company with each other ... in any game of cards, dice, dominoes, checkers, pool, billiards, softball, basketball, baseball, football, golf, track, and at swimming pools, beaches, lakes or ponds or any other game or games or athletic contests, either indoors or outdoors."[65]

Later in the year, Montgomery police charged seven Klansmen with the bombings, but all of the defendants were acquitted. About the same time, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled against Martin Luther King's appeal of his "illegal boycott" conviction.[67] Rosa Parks left Montgomery due to death threats and employment blacklisting.[68] According to Charles Silberman, "by 1963, most Negroes in Montgomery had returned to the old custom of riding in the back of the bus."[69]

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice contains, among other things, a sculpture "dedicated to the women who sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott", by Dana King, to help illustrate the civil rights period.[70] The memorial opened in downtown Montgomery, Alabama on April 26, 2018.[71][72]

## Participants[edit]

### People[edit]

* Ralph Abernathy
* Hugo Black
* James F. Blake
* Aurelia Browder
* Mary Fair Burks
* Johnnie Carr
* Claudette Colvin
* Clifford Durr
* Mildred Fahrni[73]
* Georgia Gilmore
* Robert Graetz
* Fred Gray
* Grover C. Hall Jr.
* Coretta Scott King
* Martin Luther King Jr.
* Theodora Lacey
* Edgar Nixon
* Rosa Parks
* Mother Pollard
* Jo Ann Robinson
* Bayard Rustin
* Nate Singleton
* Glenn Smiley
* Mary Louise Smith

### Organizations[edit]

* Committee for Nonviolent Integration
* Fellowship of Reconciliation
* Georgia Gilmore
* Men of Montgomery[74][75]
* Montgomery Improvement Association
* National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
* Women's Political Council

## See also[edit]

* 1957 Alexandra Bus Boycott
* Boycott (2001 film)
* Bristol Bus Boycott, 1963
* The Legacy Museum
* The Long Walk Home (1990 film)
* Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story
* Rosa Parks Act
* Rosa Parks Museum

Portals:

* 1950s
* United States

## References[edit]

1. ^ "Montgomery Bus Boycott". Civil Rights Movement Archive.
2. ^ Gallagher, Charles A.; Lippard, Cameron D., eds. (2014). Race and Racism in the United States: An Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic. ABC-CLIO. p. 807\. ISBN 9781440803468.
3. ^ Smith, Bonnie G., ed. (2008). "The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Volume 1". Oxford University Press. p. 396\. ISBN 9780195148909.
4. ^ McCloskey, Robert G.; Levinson, Sanford (2010). The American Supreme Court (5th ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 144\. ISBN 978-0-226-55686-4.
5. ^ Lipsitz, George (2011). How racism takes place. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 978-1-4399-0257-8. OCLC 708094574.
6. ^ Shultziner, Doron (2013). "The Social-Psychological Origins of the Montgomery Bus Boycott: Social Interaction and Humiliation in the Emergence of Social Movements". Mobilization: An International Quarterly. 18 (2): 117–142. doi:10.17813/maiq.18.2.83123352476r2x82.
7. ^ McGuire, Danielle L. (2010). At the dark end of the street: black women, rape, and resistance- a new history of the civil rights movement from Rosa Parks to the rise of black power (1st ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. xviii. ISBN 978-0-307-26906-5. OCLC 503042152.
8. ^ "Transportation Protests: 1841 - 1992". Civil Rights Teaching. Retrieved August 24, 2021.
9. ^ a b c McGuire, Danielle L. (2010). At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance—A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (1st ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-26906-5. OCLC 503042152.
10. ^ United States Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (October 17, 2013). "The Road to Civil Rights: Journey of Reconciliation". dot.gov.
11. ^ Public Broadcasting Service (2002). "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow: MORGAN v. Virginia (1946)". pbs.org.
12. ^ McCabe, Katie; Roundtree, Dovey Johnson (2009). Justice Older Than the Law: The Life of Dovey Johnson Roundtree. University Press of Mississippi. p. 103\. ISBN 978-1617031212.
13. ^ Borger, Julian (April 3, 2006). "Civil rights heroes may get pardons". The Guardian. Retrieved March 23, 2017.
14. ^ a b Dr. Mary Price; Louisiana State University (December 1, 2013). "Baton Rouge Bus Boycott". lsu.edu.
15. ^ a b Julio Alicea; Swarthmore College (December 9, 2010). "African American passengers boycott segregated buses in Baton Rouge, 1953". swarthmore.edu.
16. ^ Nikki L. M. Brown, Barry M. Stentiford (2008). The Jim Crow Encyclopedia: Greenwood Milestones in African-American History. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 66\. ISBN 978-0313341816.
17. ^ Debbie Elliott; National Public Radio (June 19, 2003). "The First Civil Rights Bus Boycott". NPR.
18. ^ Garrow, David J. (1985). "The Origins of the Montgomery Bus Boycott". Journal of the Southern Regional Council. Emory University. 7 (5): 24. Archived from the original on July 14, 2010.
19. ^ Crowe, Chris. (2003). Getting Away With Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case. New York: Phyllis Fogelman Books. ISBN 0803728042. OCLC 49699347.
20. ^ Shay, Alison; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (November 7, 2012). "Remembering Sarah Keys". unc.edu. Archived from the original on December 3, 2013.
21. ^ "Jim Crow Barred in Interstate Bus". archive.nytimes.com. Retrieved January 22, 2021.
22. ^ Browder v. Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707 (1956)
23. ^ "Smithsonian Source". www.smithsoniansource.org.
24. ^ Garrow (1986) p. 13. David Garrow wrote, "Mrs. [Rosa] Parks once told ... how she had been physically thrown off a bus some ten years earlier when, after paying her fare at the front of the bus, she had refused to get off and reenter by the back door -- a custom often inflicted on black riders."
25. ^ William J. Cooper, Jr., Thomas E. Terrill, The American South: A History, Volume II, 4 ed., Rowman and Littlefield, 2009, p. 730.
26. ^ The company was sold to the City of Montgomery in 1974 and become the Montgomery Area Transit System
27. ^ Boyle, Kevin (November 21, 1995). The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945–1968. Cornell University Press. p. 121\. ISBN 978-1-5017-1327-9.
28. ^ McGuire, Danielle L. (2010). At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance- A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. Random House. p. 8 and 39. ISBN 978-0-307-26906-5.
29. ^ "Rosa Park's arrest report" (PDF). December 1, 1955. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 22, 2015. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
30. ^ "Parks, Rosa Louise." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online[permanent dead link] (accessed May 8, 2009).
31. ^ a b Feeney, Mark (October 25, 2005). "Rosa Parks, civil rights icon, dead at 92 - The Boston Globe". Boston.com. Retrieved September 28, 2012.
32. ^ "Digital History". www.digitalhistory.uh.edu. Retrieved January 22, 2021.
33. ^ Thamel, Pete (January 1, 2006). "Grier Integrated a Game and Earned the World's Respect". New York Times. Retrieved April 15, 2009.
34. ^ Jackson, Joelle (May 31, 2011). "E.D. Nixon (1899-1987) •". Retrieved August 24, 2021.
35. ^ "E.D. Nixon, leader in civil rights, dies". The New York Times. February 27, 1987. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 24, 2021.
36. ^ "Activist e. D. Nixon | Early Life and Activism | Explore | Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words | Exhibitions at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress". Library of Congress.
37. ^ "Leaflet, "Don't Ride the Bus", Come to a Mass Meeting on 5 December". Mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved June 5, 2014.
38. ^ Crosby, Emilye (2011). Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles, a National Movement - Google Books. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 9780820338651. Retrieved June 5, 2014.
39. ^ "African Americans boycott buses for integration in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S., 1955-1956 | Global Nonviolent Action Database". nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu. Retrieved January 23, 2021.
40. ^ Beito, David T.; Beito, Linda Royster (2009). Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 139.
41. ^ Jakoubek, Robert (1989). Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil Rights Leader. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers. p. 49.
42. ^ University, © Stanford; Stanford; California 94305 (April 26, 2017). "Montgomery Bus Boycott". The Martin Luther King Jr., Research and Education Institute. Retrieved January 23, 2021.
43. ^ Phibbs, Cheryl Fisher (2009). The Montgomery Bus Boycott: A History and Reference Guide. ABC-CLIO. p. 19\. ISBN 9780313358876.
44. ^ Martin Luther King. "Address to the first Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) Mass Meeting". Stanford University. Archived from the original on December 6, 2013. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
45. ^ "To J.Edgar Hoover from Special Agent in Charge". Stanford University. Archived from the original on December 7, 2013. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
46. ^ Finkleman, Paul (2009). Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present. Oxford University Press. p. 360\. ISBN 9780195167795.
47. ^ "Montgomery Bus Boycott: The story of Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement". Montgomeryboycott.com. Retrieved September 28, 2012.
48. ^ Darby, Jean (1990). Martin Luther King, Jr. Minneapolis: Lerner Publishing Group. pp. 41–42. ISBN 0-8225-4902-6.
49. ^ "Montgomery, Ala., Bus Boycott" (PDF). Retrieved September 28, 2012.
50. ^ "State of Alabama v. M. L. King, Jr., Nos. 7399 and 9593". kinginstitute.stanford.edu. July 7, 2017. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
51. ^ "Remembering the Montgomery Bus Boycott". UAW. February 22, 2016. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
52. ^ "The Life and Words of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Part 1 of 2) | Scholastic.com". Teacher.scholastic.com. Retrieved September 28, 2012.
53. ^ McGuire, Danielle (2010). At the Dark End of the Stree. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 96–97. ISBN 978-0-307-26906-5.
54. ^ Blackside, Inc. "Interview with Georgia Gilmore, conducted by Blackside, Inc. on February 17, 1986, for Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years (1954-1965)". Washington University Libraries, Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection. Retrieved November 26, 2011.
55. ^ McGuire, Danielle (2010). At the Dark End of the Street. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-26906-5.[page needed]
56. ^ a b "381 Days: The Montgomery Bus Boycott Story". sites.si.edu. Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on March 16, 2011. Retrieved March 31, 2016.
57. ^ "Browder v. Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707 (M.D. Ala. 1956)". Justia US law. Retrieved June 23, 2020.
58. ^ "Gayle v. Browder". Oyez. Retrieved June 27, 2020.
59. ^ "Browder v. Gayle, 352 U.S. 903". Stanford University. April 24, 2017. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
60. ^ Once We Walked: A Calendar Commemorating the 382 Days of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-56. Montgomery: NewSouth Books. 2005. p. 31.
61. ^ Wright, H. R: The Birth of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, page 123. Charro Book Co., Inc., 1991. ISBN 0-9629468-0-X
62. ^ McAdam, Doug (December 1983). "Tactical Innovation and the Pace of Insurgency". American Sociological Review. 48 (6): 735–54. doi:10.2307/2095322. JSTOR 2095322. S2CID 62832487.
63. ^ Thornton, J. Mills (2006). Dividing Lines:Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma. University of Alabama Press. pp. 111–2.
64. ^ "Overview". www.montgomeryboycott.com. Archived from the original on February 6, 2016. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
65. ^ a b c Kennedy, Randall (April 1989). "Martin Luther King's Constitution: A Legal History of the Montgomery Bus Boycott". The Yale Law Journal. 98 (6): 999–1067. doi:10.2307/796572. JSTOR 796572.
66. ^ Thornton, J. Mills (2006). Dividing Lines:Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma. University of Alabama Press. p. 94.
67. ^ Branch, Taylor (1988). Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963. Simon and Schuster. p. 202.
68. ^ Theoharis, Jeanne (February 4, 2013). "10 Things You Don't Know About Rosa Parks". Huffington Post.
69. ^ Silberman, Charles E. (1964). Crisis in Black and White. Random House. pp. 141–2.
70. ^ Wright, Barnett (April 19, 2018). "What's inside Montgomery's national peace and slave memorial museum opening April 26". Birmingham Times. Retrieved April 21, 2018.
71. ^ "The National Memorial for Peace and Justice". Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice.
72. ^ Robertson, Campbell (April 25, 2018). "A Lynching Memorial Is Opening. The Country Has Never Seen Anything Like It". The New York Times.
73. ^ Pitsula, James M. (Spring 2003). "Reviewed Work: No Plaster Saint: The Life of Mildred Osterhout Fahrni by Nancy Knickerbocker". Labour / Le Travail. Vancouver, Canada: Canadian Committee on Labour History and Athabasca University Press. 51: 282–284. doi:10.2307/25149348. JSTOR 25149348.
74. ^ Coleman, Christopher; Nee, Laurence D.; Rubinowitz, Leonard S. (2005). "Social Movements and Social-Change Litigation: Synergy in the Montgomery Bus Protest". Law & Social Inquiry. 30 (4): 663–736 (notes 106, 187). doi:10.1086/500178. JSTOR 4092740.
75. ^ Glennon, Robert Jerome (1991). "The Role of Law in the Civil Rights Movement: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1957". Law and History Review. 9 (1): 59–112. doi:10.2307/743660. JSTOR 743660. S2CID 145141702.

## Further reading[edit]

* Berg, Allison, "Trauma and Testimony in Black Women's Civil Rights Memoirs: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It, Warriors Don't Cry, and From the Mississippi Delta', Journal of Women's History, 21 (Fall 2009), 84–107.
* Branch, Taylor. Parting The Waters: America In The King Years, 1954-63 (1988; New York: Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, 1989). ISBN 0-671-68742-5
* Carson, Clayborne, et al., editors, Eyes on The Prize Civil Rights Reader: documents, speeches, and first hand accounts from the black freedom struggle (New York:Penguin Books, 1991). ISBN 0-14-015403-5
* Freedman, Russell, "Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott"
* Garrow, David J. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. (1986) ISBN 0-394-75623-1
* Garrow, David J., editor, The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1987). ISBN 0-87049-527-5
* King, Martin Luther, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom. ISBN 0-06-250490-8
* Morris, Aldon D., The Origins Of The Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing For Change (New York: The Free Press, 1984). ISBN 0-02-922130-7
* Parks, Rosa (1992). My Story. New York: Dial Books.
* Raines, Howell, My Soul Is Rested: The Story Of The Civil Rights Movement In The Deep South. ISBN 0-14-006753-1
* Robnett, Belinda. How Long? How Long?: African American Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights. Oxford University Press. (1997) ISBN 978-0195114904
* Thornton III, J. Mills. "Challenge and Response in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–1956." Alabama Review 67.1 (2014): 40–112.
* Thornton III, J. Mills. Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma (2002) excerpt
* Walsh, Frank, Landmark Events in American History: The Montgomery Bus Boycott.
* Williams, Juan, Eyes on The Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 (New York: Penguin Books, 1988). ISBN 0-14-009653-1

## External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Montgomery Bus Boycott.

* Alabama Civil Rights Collection – Jack Rabin Collection on Alabama Civil Rights and Southern Activists, at Pennsylvania State University, includes oral history interviews and materials concerning Montgomery Bus Boycott
* Montgomery Bus Boycott article, Encyclopedia of Alabama Archived May 14, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
* Montgomery Bus Boycott – Story of Montgomery Bus Boycott
* Encyclopedia entry on the Montgomery Bus Boycott – Includes cross-referenced text, historical documents and streaming audio, presented by the King Research Institute at Stanford University
* The Montgomery Bus Boycott – African-American History
* Montgomery Bus Boycott – Civil Rights Movement Archive
* Learning From Rosa Parks, The Indypendent
* Montgomery Bus Boycott – Presented by the Montgomery Advertiser Archived December 13, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
* Civil Rights Era Mug Shots, Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, Alabama Department of Archives & History
* Martin Luther King and the "Montgomery Story" Comic Book – 1956
* Montgomery Bus Boycott Documents Online collection of original boycott documents and articles by participants – Civil Rights Movement Archive.
* Montgomery Bus Boycott, Civil Rights Digital Library.
* The Boycott, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.

* v
* t
* e

Civil rights movement (1954–1968)

Events
(timeline)|

| Prior to 1954|

* Journey of Reconciliation
* Executive Order 9981
* Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore
* Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
* McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950)
* Baton Rouge bus boycott

|

1954–1959|

* Brown v. Board of Education
* Bolling v. Sharpe
* Briggs v. Elliott
* Davis v. Prince Edward County
* Gebhart v. Belton
* Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company
* Emmett Till
* Montgomery bus boycott
* Browder v. Gayle
* Tallahassee bus boycott
* Mansfield school desegregation
* 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom
* "Give Us the Ballot"
* Royal Ice Cream sit-in
* Little Rock Nine
* Cooper v. Aaron
* Civil Rights Act of 1957
* Ministers' Manifesto
* Katz Drug Store sit-in
* Kissing Case
* Biloxi wade-ins

1960–1963|

* New Year's Day March
* Sit-in movement
* Greensboro sit-ins
* Nashville sit-ins
* Atlanta sit-ins
* Savannah Protest Movement
* Greenville Eight
* Civil Rights Act of 1960
* Ax Handle Saturday
* Gomillion v. Lightfoot
* Boynton v. Virginia
* University of Georgia desegregation riot
* Rock Hill sit-ins
* Robert F. Kennedy's Law Day Address
* Freedom Rides
* Anniston bombing
* Birmingham attack
* Garner v. Louisiana
* Albany Movement
* Cambridge movement
* University of Chicago sit-ins
* "Second Emancipation Proclamation"
* Meredith enrollment, Ole Miss riot
* Atlanta's Berlin Wall
* "Segregation now, segregation forever"
* Stand in the Schoolhouse Door
* 1963 Birmingham campaign
* Letter from Birmingham Jail
* Children's Crusade
* Birmingham riot
* 16th Street Baptist Church bombing
* John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation on Civil Rights
* Detroit Walk to Freedom
* March on Washington
* "I Have a Dream"
* Big Six
* St. Augustine movement

1964–1968|

* Twenty-fourth Amendment
* Chester school protests
* Bloody Tuesday
* 1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests
* Freedom Summer
* workers' murders
* Civil Rights Act of 1964
* Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States
* Katzenbach v. McClung
* 1964–1965 Scripto strike
* 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches
* "How Long, Not Long"
* Voting Rights Act of 1965
* Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections
* March Against Fear
* White House Conference on Civil Rights
* Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago open housing movement
* Loving v. Virginia
* Memphis sanitation strike
* King assassination
* funeral
* riots
* Civil Rights Act of 1968
* Poor People's Campaign
* Green v. County School Board of New Kent County
* Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.

Activist
groups|

* Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
* Atlanta Student Movement
* Black Panther Party
* Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
* Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
* Committee for Freedom Now
* Committee on Appeal for Human Rights
* An Appeal for Human Rights
* Council for United Civil Rights Leadership
* Council of Federated Organizations
* Dallas County Voters League
* Deacons for Defense and Justice
* Georgia Council on Human Relations
* Highlander Folk School
* Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
* Lowndes County Freedom Organization
* Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
* Montgomery Improvement Association
* NAACP
* Youth Council
* Nashville Student Movement
* Nation of Islam
* Northern Student Movement
* National Council of Negro Women
* National Urban League
* Operation Breadbasket
* Regional Council of Negro Leadership
* Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
* Southern Regional Council
* Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
* The Freedom Singers
* United Auto Workers (UAW)
* Wednesdays in Mississippi
* Women's Political Council

Activists|

* Ralph Abernathy
* Victoria Gray Adams
* Zev Aelony
* Mathew Ahmann
* Muhammad Ali
* William G. Anderson
* Gwendolyn Armstrong
* Arnold Aronson
* Ella Baker
* James Baldwin
* Marion Barry
* Daisy Bates
* Harry Belafonte
* James Bevel
* Claude Black
* Gloria Blackwell
* Randolph Blackwell
* Unita Blackwell
* Ezell Blair Jr.
* Joanne Bland
* Julian Bond
* Joseph E. Boone
* William Holmes Borders
* Amelia Boynton
* Bruce Boynton
* Raylawni Branch
* Stanley Branche
* Ruby Bridges
* Aurelia Browder
* H. Rap Brown
* Ralph Bunche
* Guy Carawan
* Stokely Carmichael
* Johnnie Carr
* James Chaney
* J. L. Chestnut
* Shirley Chisholm
* Colia Lafayette Clark
* Ramsey Clark
* Septima Clark
* Xernona Clayton
* Eldridge Cleaver
* Kathleen Cleaver
* Charles E. Cobb Jr.
* Annie Lee Cooper
* Dorothy Cotton
* Claudette Colvin
* Vernon Dahmer
* Jonathan Daniels
* Abraham Lincoln Davis
* Angela Davis
* Joseph DeLaine
* Dave Dennis
* Annie Devine
* Patricia Stephens Due
* Joseph Ellwanger
* Charles Evers
* Medgar Evers
* Myrlie Evers-Williams
* Chuck Fager
* James Farmer
* Walter Fauntroy
* James Forman
* Marie Foster
* Golden Frinks
* Andrew Goodman
* Robert Graetz
* Fred Gray
* Jack Greenberg
* Dick Gregory
* Lawrence Guyot
* Prathia Hall
* Fannie Lou Hamer
* Fred Hampton
* William E. Harbour
* Vincent Harding
* Dorothy Height
* Lola Hendricks
* Aaron Henry
* Oliver Hill
* Donald L. Hollowell
* James Hood
* Myles Horton
* Zilphia Horton
* T. R. M. Howard
* Ruby Hurley
* Cecil Ivory
* Jesse Jackson
* Jimmie Lee Jackson
* Richie Jean Jackson
* T. J. Jemison
* Esau Jenkins
* Barbara Rose Johns
* Vernon Johns
* Frank Minis Johnson
* Clarence Jones
* J. Charles Jones
* Matthew Jones
* Vernon Jordan
* Tom Kahn
* Clyde Kennard
* A. D. King
* C.B. King
* Coretta Scott King
* Martin Luther King Jr.
* Martin Luther King Sr.
* Bernard Lafayette
* James Lawson
* Bernard Lee
* Sanford R. Leigh
* Jim Letherer
* Stanley Levison
* John Lewis
* Viola Liuzzo
* Z. Alexander Looby
* Joseph Lowery
* Clara Luper
* Danny Lyon
* Malcolm X
* Mae Mallory
* Vivian Malone
* Bob Mants
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* Benjamin Mays
* Franklin McCain
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* Joseph McNeil
* James Meredith
* William Ming
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* Harry T. Moore
* Queen Mother Moore
* William Lewis Moore
* Irene Morgan
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* Elijah Muhammad
* Diane Nash
* Charles Neblett
* Huey P. Newton
* Edgar Nixon
* Jack O'Dell
* James Orange
* Rosa Parks
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* Charles Person
* Homer Plessy
* Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
* Fay Bellamy Powell
* Rodney N. Powell
* Al Raby
* Lincoln Ragsdale
* A. Philip Randolph
* George Raymond
* George Raymond Jr.
* Bernice Johnson Reagon
* Cordell Reagon
* James Reeb
* Frederick D. Reese
* Walter Reuther
* Gloria Richardson
* David Richmond
* Bernice Robinson
* Jo Ann Robinson
* Angela Russell
* Bayard Rustin
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* Bobby Seale
* Cleveland Sellers
* Charles Sherrod
* Alexander D. Shimkin
* Fred Shuttlesworth
* Modjeska Monteith Simkins
* Glenn E. Smiley
* A. Maceo Smith
* Kelly Miller Smith
* Mary Louise Smith
* Maxine Smith
* Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson
* Charles Kenzie Steele
* Hank Thomas
* Dorothy Tillman
* A. P. Tureaud
* Hartman Turnbow
* Albert Turner
* C. T. Vivian
* Wyatt Tee Walker
* Hollis Watkins
* Walter Francis White
* Roy Wilkins
* Hosea Williams
* Kale Williams
* Robert F. Williams
* Andrew Young
* Whitney Young
* Sammy Younge Jr.
* Bob Zellner
* James Zwerg

By region|

* Omaha, Nebraska
* South Carolina

Movement
songs|

* "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round"
* "If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus"
* "Kumbaya"
* "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize"
* "Oh, Freedom"
* "This Little Light of Mine"
* "We Shall Not Be Moved"
* "We Shall Overcome"
* "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)"

Influences|

* Nonviolence
* Padayatra
* Sermon on the Mount
* Mahatma Gandhi
* Ahimsa
* Satyagraha
* The Kingdom of God Is Within You
* Frederick Douglass
* W. E. B. Du Bois
* Mary McLeod Bethune

Related|

* Jim Crow laws
* Lynching in the United States
* Plessy v. Ferguson
* Separate but equal
* Buchanan v. Warley
* Hocutt v. Wilson
* Sweatt v. Painter
* Hernandez v. Texas
* Loving v. Virginia
* African-American women in the movement
* Fifth Circuit Four
* 16th Street Baptist Church
* Kelly Ingram Park
* A.G. Gaston Motel
* Bethel Baptist Church
* Brown Chapel
* Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
* Holt Street Baptist Church
* Edmund Pettus Bridge
* March on Washington Movement
* African-American churches attacked
* List of lynching victims in the United States
* Freedom Schools
* Freedom songs
* Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
* "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence"
* Voter Education Project
* 1960s counterculture
* African American founding fathers of the United States
* Eyes on the Prize

Legacy|

* In popular culture
* Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
* Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
* Civil Rights Memorial
* Civil Rights Movement Archive
* Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument
* Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument
* Freedom Rides Museum
* Freedom Riders National Monument
* King Center for Nonviolent Social Change
* Martin Luther King Jr. Day
* Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
* other King memorials
* Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
* National Civil Rights Museum
* National Voting Rights Museum
* St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument

Noted
historians|

* Taylor Branch
* Clayborne Carson
* John Dittmer
* Michael Eric Dyson
* Chuck Fager
* Adam Fairclough
* David Garrow
* David Halberstam
* Vincent Harding
* Steven F. Lawson
* Doug McAdam
* Diane McWhorter
* Charles M. Payne
* Thomas E. Ricks
* Timothy Tyson
* Akinyele Umoja
* Movement photographers

Civil rights movement portal

* v
* t
* e

African Americans

History|

* Timeline
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* Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
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* 1964
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* Civil rights movement 1865–1896
* Civil right movement 1896–1954
* Civil rights movement 1954–1968
* Montgomery bus boycott
* Browder v. Gayle (1956)
* Sit-in movement
* Freedom Riders
* Birmingham movement
* March on Washington
* Selma to Montgomery marches
* Chicago Freedom Movement
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* Cornerstone Speech
* COVID-19 impact
* Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
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Notable people|

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* Kamala Harris
* Jimi Hendrix
* Jesse Jackson
* Ketanji Brown Jackson
* Michael Jackson
* Harriet Jacobs
* Barbara Jordan
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* Bernard Lafayette
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* Barack Obama
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Education, science
and technology|

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Religion|

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Sports|

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Demographics|

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