December 1, 1955

The arrest of Rosa Parks, an African American passenger on a bus in Montgomery, AL, for refusing to give up her seat at the front of the “colored section” to a white passenger, attracted both local and nationwide attention. A bus boycott, encouraged by the newly elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., lasted until the desegregation of the Montgomery buses on Dec. 21, 1956.