<Dd> 16th Street Baptist Church bombing </Dd> <Dd> Selma to Montgomery marches </Dd> <P> The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama . It was a seminal event in the Civil Rights Movement . The campaign lasted from December 5, 1955--the Monday after Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person--to December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional . Many important figures in the Civil Rights Movement took part in the boycott, including Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy . </P> <P> Prior to the bus boycott, Jim Crow laws enabled the racial segregation of the Montgomery Bus Line . As a result of this segregation African Americans were not hired as drivers, were forced to ride in the back of the bus, and were frequently ordered to surrender their seats to white people even though black passengers made up 75% of the bus system's riders . </P>

When did the montgomery bus boycott take place