On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a crowded bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to travel home after a hard day’s work. As always, she sat in the back, which was set aside for blacks.
After a few stops, all the seats were taken. Then a white passenger boarded, and the bus driver told Mrs. Parks and the others in her row to stand and let the white man sit. When Rosa Parks refused, she was taken to the police station and booked, then moved to the city jail. That evening, she was released on bond.
News of Rosa Parks’s arrest spread rapidly, and the city’s African-Americans decided to protest by staying off the buses. On the following Monday, almost all the city’s African-American bus riders had found another way to get to work. The boycotters had a very simple goal. They wanted to put a stop to the forced segregation on the city’s buses.
To keep the boycott going, Montgomery’s black leaders founded the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). They elected 26-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. president. The MIA started car pools to help people get to work, and they held meetings to encourage people to keep the boycott alive.
