Early Resistance on the Montgomery Bus Lines
On December 3, 1955, two days after Rosa Parks’ arrest, Montgomery’s buses were already running quieter. Routes normally filled with Black riders were nearly empty that Saturday morning. No official boycott had been announced yet, but the city could feel a shift coming. Word moved through churches, neighborhoods, and social circles, and people simply stepped back from the buses on their own. It was unity in motion before anyone called it a movement.
This energy didn’t appear out of thin air. Earlier that year, on March 2, 1955, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin had already refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus. She was arrested, taken off in handcuffs, and her case became part of the legal groundwork forming quietly behind the scenes. She wasn’t chosen to represent the broader boycott effort at the time, but her courage mattered. She wasn’t the first in history to resist bus segregation, but she was the first to take that stand in Montgomery that year… planting seeds that would grow by December.
By December 3, the community’s collective decision to stay off the buses showed how ready people were. They didn’t wait for a meeting, a flyer, or a vote. They simply acted.
On December 5, thousands gathered at Holt Street Baptist Church, where the Montgomery Bus Boycott officially began. It would continue for 381 days, becoming one of the most disciplined and effective demonstrations of the modern era.
Including Claudette Colvin in this story gives a fuller picture of 1955… showing how the atmosphere of resistance was already building before Rosa Parks was arrested.
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