She was fined fourteen dollars for her civil disobedience. A movement in Montgomery quickly developed after her arrest. Fifty ministers and civic leaders met on December 2, 1955 and began a boycott. The leaders were E.D. Nixon, a regional official of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and Ralph Abernathy, a NAACP activist and secretary of the black Ministral Alliance. Abernathy also suggested the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), to handle the boycott. Leaflets were produced to publicize the boycott, and 18 African American taxi companies agreed to charge the bus fare rate rather than their normal rate.
26 year old Martin Luther King, Jr. was chosen to head the MIA. On December 5, 1955, King addressed over 4 thousand people at the Holt St. Baptist Church. His speech was developed around the ethics of nonviolent social protest. After King gave his logical and eloquent speech Abernathy then spoke and gave the three demands of the boycott. First, drivers must treat African Americans with courtesy. Second, passengers are to be seated on a first come first serve basis. Blacks from the back to the front, whites from the front to the back, while latecomers of both races must stand. Third, African American drivers must be employed on primarily black routes.
With many African Americans using taxis or walking, the boycott turned out to be almost 100% effective. However, the bus company agreed to the first demand only. The boycott continued on and police ordered all taxis to charge a minimum .45 cent fare. The white community was split concerning the boycott. The boycott brought about a reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan. King's and Abernathy's homes were both bombed, along with his Hutchinson Street Baptist Church.
The boycott initiated the modern use of nonviolent protest and made King a National leader of the Civil Rights Movement.
The Supreme Court decision in Gayle et al V.