The Montgomery Bus Boycott

After Parks’s arrest, the Women’s Political Council circulated calls for a one-day boycott. Black Montgomery residents made that action durable by organizing carpools, mass meetings, fundraising, legal challenges, and the Montgomery Improvement Association.

The boycott lasted more than a year and involved roughly 17,000 Black residents withholding their fares from the segregated bus system. Parks became its most recognized catalyst, but its power came from disciplined collective participation and from organizing traditions that predated December 1955.