Which organization did Martin Luther King Jr. lead during the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott?

Martin Luther King Jr. led the Montgomery Improvement Association during the 1955–1956 Montgomery bus boycott.

The association was formed in December 1955 after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger. Local Black ministers and community leaders created the group to coordinate the boycott, negotiate with city officials, and support the Black community’s alternative transportation system.

King, then pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, was chosen as the association’s president. His public speeches helped give the local protest national attention, while the organization’s carpools and volunteer network kept the boycott operating for more than a year.

The boycott ended after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Browder v. Gayle was implemented. That case ruled Alabama’s bus-segregation laws unconstitutional. The Montgomery Improvement Association continued after the boycott and helped lay groundwork for later southern civil rights organizing.