Montgomery Bus Boycott Research Paper

Americans have been fighting for civil rights as early as the seventeenth century, and are still fighting for it today. From December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, the African-American community of Montgomery, Alabama boycotted public buses due to segregation of blacks. This events stands at the height of the Civil Rights Movement because of its victory. Much of African-American history went undocumented. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was an important enough event to keep in history textbooks because culturally, it started due to segregation based on race, and politically because these protests brought new laws into action. Culturally, the Montgomery Bus Boycott set the mood of the entire Civil Rights Movement. The public buses in Montgomery, Alabama at the time were segregated, the whites sat at the front and the blacks sat at the back. During this time, the white community saw themselves as superior to the other races. However, the African-American community have started to stand up for themselves. Although she was not the first one to do so, Rosa Parks was the one to spark the boycott. She refused to give her seat up to a white passenger which resulted in her arrest. For Parks, “it is unlikely that she fully realized the forces she had set into motion and the controversy that would soon swirl around her” says the official website of the Montgomery Bus

This event sparked other events to take place in American history. It brought a great deal of hope to the people involved and the people who witnessed it. For years later, this event continued to inspire people. For example, during the “Brown Power” Movement, the Montgomery Bus Boycott inspired the farm worker boycotts that were held. It sparked many events for the Civil Rights Movement. If this boycott never happened, American history could possibly be extremely