Results & Significance

• • The Brown ruling had elicited a white backlash and the establishment of ‘White Citizens’ Councils to defend segregation
  • The Montgomery Citizens' Council organised the opposition to the Boycott and used arrests and intimidation to try and frighten leaders like King-attracted favourable nationwide attention to the black community's efforts
• NAACP won a legal victory in the Supreme Court ruling against segregated buses in Browder vs Gayle


  November 1956
• Montgomery's buses were desegregated after the NAACP's legal victory
• Montgomery's black community

  • Demonstrated the potential power of a new mode of activism (mass direct action)
  • But it was the NAACP litigation and Browder vs Gayle that ensured the desegregation of Montgomery's buses
• Only Montgomery's buses were desegregated as segregation continued in other public spaces
• Martin Luther King Jr.


  • Emerged as a major new black leader
  • His inspirational oratory had gained national attention
  • In 1957 he established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to continue the fight against segregation