Today in History

A new city ordinance officially integrates public buses in Montgomery, Alabama, and African Americans return to the city buses after a year-long boycott, inspired by Rosa Parks' refusal to move to the back of a bus. Boycott leaders, including Martin Luther King, had filed a federal suit in February 1956 to desegregate Alabama's buses. In November, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court's ruling that Alabama's laws segregating buses were unconstitutional. The victory brings national attention to the civil rights movement, and to King.

Smithsonian Magazine