The “separate but equal” doctrine established by the Supreme Court in effect justified segregation everywhere. Restaurants were divided in the “white” and “colored,” as were theatres and even public transport — whites in front, everyone else in the back. The bus segregation was the focus of most protests, starting perhaps with Rosa Parks in 1943 and continuing with pastor Vernon Johns urging other blacks on his bus to leave with him in protest after he was forced to give up his seat to a white man. The bus segregation faced its strongest challenge with the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which led to a court decision striking down the law.

On this day, June 5, in 1956, a federal court panel ruled two to one that bus segregation was illegal, citing the Supreme Court’s previous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Martin Luther King, who worked tirelessly to strike down Montgomery’s law, was ecstatic, but called for a continuation of the bus boycott until the ruling went into effect. He could foresee the case going to the Supreme Court.

King led the Montgomery Improvement Association that organized a boycott of the city’s buses by African American residents. King submitted a list of demands to the city’s bus company regarding treatment for passengers, including first-come-first-serve seating policies and courteous treatment by the driver. When the city rejected his offer. King urged a continual boycott until segregation in Montgomery would be lifted. As he said in a boycott rally “If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong’’.