The Civil Rights Movement

The Montgomery Bus Boycott In December of 1955, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, occurred when African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. It is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the U.S. On December 1, 1955, four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, refused to yield her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus. She was arrested and fined.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott The boycott of public buses by blacks in Montgomery began on the day of Parks’ court hearing and lasted 381 days. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system. One of the leaders of the boycott, a young pastor named Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68), emerged as a prominent national leader of the American civil rights movement in the wake of the action.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

The Greensboro Sit ins

The Nashville Sit ins

The Greensboro Sit ins

The Greensboro Sit ins “...We were reminded of Thoreau's essay of "Civil Disobedience." In that essay Thoreau said "Most of all I must see to it that I do not lend myself to the evil which I condemn." We had been condemning segregation verbally for a long time, but we had lent ourselves to it by patronizing those places that were segregated.”

The Greensboro Sit ins