Baton Rouge Bus Boycott History Page









											In June 1953, the African American community of Baton Rouge broke new ground in the modern civil rights movement. Years before the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, and the historic protest in Montgomery led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks, leaders of the Baton Rouge African American community organized the 1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott to protest racial segregation, and to promote justice and equality. The signature innovation of the boycott was the indigenous free-ride network, which was later studied and borrowed by Dr. King during the seminal 1955 boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. While the Baton Rouge boycott lasted only two weeks, it broke new ground, and is increasingly recognized as a precedent-setting event in the history of the modern American civil rights movement. For a complete history and chronology of the Baton Rouge bus boycott, visit the T. HARRY WILLIAMS ORAL HISTORY CENTER WEBSITE.