The Civil Rights Movement in its contemporary form started in 1955 with an act of mild disobedience by a black woman on a bus in the Deep South. Black leaders developed several strategies over the next few years, strategies that would be successful in changing laws and in getting some of the long-standing discriminatory institutions of the South changed. Between 1954 and 1965, the Civil Rights Movement developed into a major movement for social justice, societal change, and self-determination for millions of black Americans. The tactics undertaken by the movement have ranged from violent to non-violent, with non-violent predominating under the direction of Martin Luther King Jr. and his followers. The movement started first around the busing issue in Montgomery, Alabama, but it was also the culmination of decades of frustration nearly a century after the slave era and after a long history of continuing discrimination and ill-treatment. Black leaders did not care to wait for white hearts to change, so they set out to change them with a program of peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins, and similar actions. This strategy started with the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama after Rosa Parks was arrested for sitting in the "white" section of a public bus. When word spread of this action, a city-wide boycott of the bus line was organized. Why did the black community coalesce around Mrs. parks four days after her arrest for riding in the white section of a bus on December 1, 1955?
The first reason was that the news circulated so people understood what had happened and became angered by it. The Women's Political Council organized the opening boycott and generated interest and support from all the black church congregations in the city (53). This was the first time that the black ministers in Montgomery had become united to lead an action for civic improvement, and they did so in part because the members of these various congregations ...