Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional.

Small collection of primary sources/documents from the Montgomery Bus Boycott during 1955-1956.

On Dec. 1, 1955, a woman named Rosa Parks was arrested for disorderly conduct after refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger. Parks wasn't the first to refuse to take the designated "coloreds only" seat in the back, but she was the one who garnered the most support.

An illuminating look into the less celebrated women who came before Rosa Parks in the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Black women in Montgomery, Alabama, unlocked a remarkable spirit in their city in late 1955.
Sick of segregated public transportation, these women decided to wield their financial power
against the city bus system and, led by Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, convinced
Montgomery's African Americans to stop using public transportation.

In April 1955, Aurelia Browder refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white rider and was taken to jail. That was seven months before Rosa Parks’ historic arrest.

Before Rosa Parks' actions made history, there were other women and men arrested for protesting segregation on public transportation. Among them was Mary Louise Smith Ware. She has mostly avoided the limelight and doesn’t tell her story often.

Filmed interview with Jo Ann Robinson conducted for America, They Loved You Madly, a precursor to Eyes on the Prize. Discussion centers on the Montgomery bus boycott and her involvement in the Women's Political Council.

In March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks defied segregation laws by refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin did exactly the same thing.

Few people know the story of Claudette Colvin: When she was 15, she refused to move to the back of the bus and give up her seat to a white person — nine months before Rosa Parks did the very same thing.