Jsunaa - Southeast Virginia Chapter

As a professor at Alabama State College and president of Montgomery's Women's Political Council, Jo Ann Robinson made desegregating the city's buses her priority. And though she was already laying the foundation for a boycott, it was Rosa Park's arrest for refusing to give up her seat in the front of the bus that officially sparked Robinson to initiate action. What started as a one-day boycott turned into a months-long fight led by the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), with Martin Luther King, Jr., as its president. Robinson was a prominent leader behind the scenes of the MIA, largely contributing to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1956 ruling that segregated buses were unconstitutional.