Rosa Parks found out the strength of segregationist zeal in Alabama. Ever since the Supreme Court established in Plessy v. Ferguson the legal doctrine of “separate but equal,” segregation was institutionalized, with every public institution separating the blacks from the whites. On buses, that meant the black passengers would ride in the rear half, with the white ones in front. Rosa Parks deliberately disobeyed that requirement: when the bus driver ordered a row of black passengers to stand up and make way for a white one, Parks stayed firm in her seat, resulting in an arrest and fine. The NAACP used her to springboard the Montgomery Bus Boycott, forcing the Supreme Court to revisit their 1896 decision.

On this day November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court upheld the Alabama court ruling that found the Montgomery County segregated bus laws unconstitutional.

Martin Luther King led the boycott — notably, not calling for full integration, where blacks could sit alongside whites, but a fixed dividing line between the sections, so that blacks would not have to give up their seats to standing white passengers. Montgomery began suffering under mounting financial hardships due to the strike, and did what they could to make non-bus movement for blacks more difficult. Several of the leaders of the boycott, including King, were arrested. King was sentenced to a year and three days in jail; he served only two weeks, and came out unapologetic, saying he was “proud” of his crime.