Following the December 1st incident in 1955 with Rosa Parks and her refusal to give up her seat to a white human being on the city bus, the Montgomery Improvement Association was created. On December 5, 1955 black ministers and community leaders in Alabama under the order of Martin Luther King, created this group. One of their most successful campaign was the Montogomery bus Boycott. This campaign gathered national attentional on the racial segregation going on in the South. In one of King`s memoirs, he stated that, ``the Negro citizen in Montgomery is respected in a way that he never was before.`` (quoted from http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_
montgomery_improvement_association) The Montgomery Boycott campaign only wanted one outcome-fair treatment. They declared that the boycott would last until the initial demands were met. These demands included, corteous treatment by bus drivers, first come first served seating, and employment of Negro bus Drivers. The MIA continued this compaign for a little over a year, and after enough fundraising, a staff position allowed for Reverend R.J. Glasco to be appointed executive secretary. The MIA officers tried nogtiationg with the Montgomery city leaders, and also tried coordination legal challenges to the city`s bus segregation ordinance with the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People. However, this campaign wasn`t so east. In the spring of 1965, the Montgomery Improvement Assoiciation suffered a minor setback. 89 boycott leaders were indicted by some Montgomery officials. This setback included Martin Luther King, for ``violationg Alabama`s 1921 anti-boycott law. `` In November 1956, the U.S. supreme court held a ruling in Browder v. Gayle, which put an end to the segregated seating on public buses. On December 21, 1956 Martin Luther King officially declared the end of the Montgomery city bus boycott, after the order to desegregate buses had arrived. |