Montgomery's buses required Black riders to sit in the back and give up seats to white riders when the front filled. Black women had long complained about abuse from drivers, and the teenager Claudette Colvin was arrested for refusing to move in March 1955. When Rosa Parks, a longtime NAACP organizer, was arrested on December 1, 1955, the Women's Political Council, led by Jo Ann Robinson, printed thousands of flyers calling for a boycott.
The Montgomery Improvement Association, led by a young Martin Luther King Jr., ran the boycott. Black residents walked, shared rides and used a volunteer carpool system for more than a year. Leaders were indicted, and King's home was bombed.
The federal case Browder v. Gayle, brought by Colvin and other women, ended the policy. A federal court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional in 1956, and the Supreme Court affirmed in November. The boycott showed that sustained economic pressure from ordinary people could defeat Jim Crow.