The Mongomery Bus Boycott started when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a White man on a public bus. Parks was arrested and this set off a demonstration that would last for 381 days. People walked or shared rides to show that Negroes would no longer accept paying to ride on only the back of the bus, or giving up their seats when the bus was overcrowded.

Rosa Park's arrest and trial led to a Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public transportation was unconstitutional, a blow to the Jim Crow laws of the South. The success of the boycott, which nearly bankrupted the bus company in Montgomery, Alabama, helped spark the civil rights movement to end segregation and unequal treatment in the United States.