From his choices, he attended Boston University. .
As King pursued his graduate studies, he also sought a wife. Early in 1952 he met Coretta Scott, and aspiring singer. After completing his coursework, King began a dissertation in which he would compare the religious views of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman. On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Birmingham bus, setting off a chain of events that catapulted King to world fame. Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to abide by one of Montgomery's laws requiring segregated seating on city buses. Because of this incident, several groups within the city's black community, unhappy with the treatment of blacks on public transportation, came together to take action. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Women's Political Council, the Baptist Ministers Conference, the city's African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zionist ministers, and the community at large united to organize a boycott of the buses. After a successful first day of boycotting, the groups formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to oversee the community action and to work with the city and busline officials to bring about fairer treatment of blacks within the existing laws. .
King was elected the MIA's first president. For 382 days, King and the black community maintained the boycott while white officials from the city and the busline resisted their demands: courtesy toward black riders, a first-come-first-serve approach to seating, and black drivers for some routes. During this period, the MIA convinced black owned taxis to reduce their fares to enable boycotters to afford a means of transportation. Then, when the city blocked that measure, the group organized carpools. King was arrested, slandered, received hate mail and phone threats, and his house was bombed; but from the outset he preached nonviolence to the black boycotters.