Montgomery Bus Boycott

King and leaders of other black Montgomery civic organizations ask President Eisenhower for a federal investigation of racial violence in Montgomery.

Parks pleads not guilty but is convicted and fined $14. Fred D. Gray, her lawyer, appeals the conviction.

Officials at National City Lines inform the MIA that union contract stipulations make it nearly impossible for them to hire black drivers.

King presents the opening remarks at an evening MIA mass meeting at Beulah Baptist Church.

Gray, speaking in King’s place at the Union Methodist Church in Boston, tells the crowd that Montgomery blacks will not give up.

On the eve of the trial against boycott leaders, eight thousand people attend prayer meetings in Montgomery to demonstrate their continued support for the boycott.

About five thousand people hear King address an evening MIA mass meeting at First Baptist Church.

The bus company and the city commission endorse a proposal by the Men of Montgomery that does not meet the MIA’s demands. Abernathy reports that the congregants at a mass meeting vote down the proposal by a margin of 3,998 to 2.

While in Chicago, King and Rev. Owen D. Pelt meet with officials of the United Packinghouse Workers Union to discuss lobbying the Chicago-based parent company of the Montgomery City Lines, the National City Lines.

Abernathy speaks at an MIA mass meeting in King’s absence.