The boycott was a major civil rights protest against the policy of racial segregation on public buses in Montgomery, Alabama.

It began on December 1, 1955, after Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man.

Local civil rights leaders, including E.D. Nixon, organized a one-day city-wide bus boycott in protest.

The one-day protest was so successful that it was extended into a long-term boycott.

The Montgomery Improvement Association was formed to lead the boycott, and a young pastor named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was elected as its president.

For 381 days, African American citizens of Montgomery refused to ride the city buses.

They organized a complex system of carpools, used black-owned taxis, and walked long distances to get to work.

The boycott placed severe economic pressure on the city's transit system.

In November 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional.

The boycott was the first large-scale, successful protest of the modern Civil Rights Movement and brought Dr. King to national prominence.