Civil rights movements
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a member of the Montgomery, Alabama, branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was told to give up her seat on a city bus to a white person. When Parks refused to move, she was arrested. The local NAACP, led by Edgar D. Nixon, recognized that Parks' arrest might rally local blacks to protest segregated buses. Montgomery's black community had long been angry about their mistreatment on city buses, where white drivers were often rude and abusive. The community had previously considered a boycott of the buses. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a success, with support from the 50,000 blacks in Montgomery. It lasted for more than a year. This event showed the American public that blacks in the South would not stop protesting until the end of segregation. A federal court ordered Montgomery's buses desegregated in November 1956. The boycott ended with the blacks winning the right to sit wherever they wanted.