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The Women's Political Council (WPC) was founded by black professionals.
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Council members met with the mayor of Montgomery, Alabama, W. A. Gayle, to outline the changes they wanted to see on the buses; no one having to stand when there were empty seats, black passengers not being made to pay at the front of the bus and then re-enter at the back, and a policy that required bus drivers to stop at every corner of black residential communities, as they did in white residential communities. No significant change came of the meeting.
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Jo Ann Robinson, president of the WPC, sent a letter to the Mayor of Montgomery, W.A. Gayle, after their meeting earlier in the year yielded no results. She mentioned in the letter that 25 local organizations had been talking about boycotting the buses if something didn't change.
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15 year old Claudette Colvin was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman.
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Mary Louise Smith was also arrested for refusing to yield her seat to white passengers after the "white section" of the bus became full.
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Similarly to Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama and was arrested for it.
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After Parks arrest, the WPC called for a one-day protest of the Montgomery buses, to take place on December 5th.
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E.D. Nixon, who was at one time the leader of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, began to call other local leaders of black organizations to have a meeting regarding the boycott.
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Leaders from black organizations meet to plan and discuss the boycott of the buses, including Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr. All leaders present agreed to publicize the December 5th boycott. The protest received a lot of attention and publicity in the newspapers, radio, and television.
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90% of Montgomery's black citizens participated in the boycott.
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On the day of the boycott, the leaders met once again to discuss extending the boycott to more than just one day. They formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and elected Martin Luther King Jr. as president.
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The MIA decided to extend the boycott.
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Black passengers boycotted the buses in Montgomery, protesting segregation and unfair treatment.
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The MIA had attempted to talk to city commissioners and bus company officials, but to no avail. The MIA issued a formal list of demands; courteous bus drivers, first-come first-served seating for all, and black bus operators on routes that are most taken by black passengers.
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Lawyers Fred Gray and Charles D. Langford file Browder v. Gayle in federal district court on behalf of four black women that had been mistreated on buses; Susie McDonald, Claudette Colvin, Mary Louise Smith, and Jeanatta Reese.
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Browder v. Gayle was brought before a three-judge U.S. District court panel, and they ruled two-to-one that bus segregation was unconstitutional, citing Brown v. The Board of Education as precedent for their decision. King was grateful for the victory, but called for the boycott to continue until the decision was implemented and the buses were desegregated.
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US Supreme Court agrees with the decision made in the federal district court, and says that the segregation of buses is unconstitutional.
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City and state appeals had come to the Supreme Court, asking them to reconsider their decision and keep buses segregated. This was rejected by the Supreme Court.
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The order for buses in Montgomery, Alabama to desegregate arrived. King and the rest of the MIA voted to end the bus boycott, starting the following day, the same day that the buses in Montgomery officially became integrated.