On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling in Browder v. Gayle, declaring Alabama’s laws requiring segregated seating on buses unconstitutional. The decision held that such statutes violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It directly undercut the legal basis for segregated buses in Montgomery, where a boycott had been underway since Rosa Parks’s arrest the previous year. The ruling forced the city to integrate its bus system, ending the boycott in a clear victory for local activists. The case demonstrated how coordinated legal challenges and grassroots protest could work together. It also encouraged civil rights campaigns against segregation in other areas of public life.
