The Montgomery Improvement Association organized a large-scale boycott of city buses in Montgomery. a protest at Montgomery’s city hall. a movement to desegregate schools in Alabama. a movement to get African Americans elected to public office. a separate faction within the Democratic party committed to civil rights.
The correct answer and explanation is:
The correct answer is: a large-scale boycott of city buses in Montgomery.
Explanation:
The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was a pivotal organization formed in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 5, 1955, four days after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus. Its creation was a direct response to this event and the long history of segregated and discriminatory practices on Montgomery’s public transportation system.
The primary and defining action organized by the MIA was the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This was not a short protest but a sustained, large-scale refusal by African Americans in Montgomery to ride the city buses. The boycott lasted for 381 days, from December 5, 1955, until December 20, 1956. The MIA provided the leadership, coordination, and logistical support necessary to keep the boycott going, organizing carpools, raising funds, and communicating with the boycotters and the wider community.
Martin Luther King Jr. was chosen as the president of the MIA, and his leadership during the boycott brought him national prominence and helped solidify the MIA’s role as the organizing force behind this significant civil rights action. The boycott successfully challenged bus segregation and led to a Supreme Court ruling (Browder v. Gayle) declaring segregated buses unconstitutional, ending the practice in Montgomery.
While the broader Civil Rights Movement encompassed many forms of protest, including those at city halls, efforts to desegregate schools, and movements for political representation, the MIA’s specific historical role and its most famous organized activity was the massive and prolonged boycott of the bus system. It was not a political party faction focused on elections or primarily a movement centered on school desegregation or a single city hall protest, but rather the driving force behind the desegregation of public transit through collective economic action.