On This Day In Alabama History: Segregated Buses Ruled Unconstitutional

By Alabama NewsCenter Staff

The handwriting was already on the wall, but on Nov. 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court essentially put an end to segregated public transportation, declaring invalid an Alabama law and a Montgomery city ordinance requiring separation of the races on buses. In its ruling, the high court affirmed a 2-1 decision by a three-judge federal panel that had already declared the statutes a violation of the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It was the climax for an extraordinary mass protest – the Montgomery Bus Boycott – led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that began almost a year earlier, in December 1955, after seamstress Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man and move to the back of the bus. Indeed, on the day of the Supreme Court decision, King was in court facing criminal charges for his role in coordinating the carpools used by blacks in Montgomery so they could avoid riding the segregated buses. The city and the state, however, weren’t ready to end the fight. They asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision. The justices rejected that request on Dec. 17, 1956. Three days later, King and the Montgomery Improvement Association officially ended the boycott that had financially crippled the city’s bus system.

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