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The Montgomery Bus Boycott And The Civil Rights Movement

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The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a year-long protest, in which African-Americans refused to ride the segregated public buses in Montgomery, Alabama. Lasting approximately 381-days, the Montgomery Bus Boycott started on December 5, 1955, and ended on December 20, 1955 (Montgomery Bus Boycott, 2010). During this time period, Jim Crow laws had just become prohibited. However, Jim Crow laws were the way of life in the South, so even though they were prohibited they were still in full action and strength. Jim Crow laws were laws that enforced racial segregation in the South between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in 1954 (Urofsky, 2015). Racial segregation is the separation of groups of people by race (e.g. using separate drinking fountains) (Montgomery Bus Boycott, 2016). The Montgomery Bus Boycott was ignited four days prior, on December 1, 1955, by a courageous African-American woman, Rosa Parks, which refused to give up her seat to a white man (Montgomery Bus Boycott, 2010). This event marked the beginning of a huge turning point for the American Civil Rights Movement.
In 1955, Montgomery, Alabama, like many Southern cities at the time, still had segregation laws that required African-Americans to sit in the “colored section” (back row seating) of the bus because the front row seating was reserved for whites only. In addition to the segregated seating, the segregation laws also required that African-Americans were obligated to

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