Civil Rights Teaching: Montgomery Bus Boycott

Students from preschool through high school learn that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in Montgomery, the buses were desegregated, and the Civil Rights Movement was launched. This traditional narrative of the Montgomery Bus Boycott creates the illusion that it was a spontaneous response to Rosa Parks' courageous act of civil disobedience. This, however, discounts the strategic brilliance, bravery, and perseverance of the African American community in Montgomery.

Below are books and a film for learning and teaching about the Montgomery Bus Boycott that help put Rosa Parks and the boycott in the context of a greater struggle for social justice. Find more resources at Teaching About the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance

By Danielle L. McGuire

Bus Ride to Justice: Changing the System by the System

By Fred D. Gray

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

By Phillip Hoose

Daybreak of Freedom: The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Edited by Stewart Burns

Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott

By Russell Freedman

Household Workers Unite: The Untold Story of African American Women Who Built a Movement

By Premilla Nadasen

Montgomery Bus Boycott: Women Who Started It

By Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, David J. Garrow (Contribution by)

Pies from Nowhere: How Georgia Gilmore Sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott*

By Dee Romito

Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching: A Resource Guide for Classrooms and Communities *

Edited by Deborah Menkart, Alana Murray, and Jenice View

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

By Jeanne Theoharis

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks: Young Readers Edition *

By Jeanne Theoharis and Brandy Colbert

Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson

By Blair L. M. Kelley

Rosa

By Nikki Giovanni, Bryan Collier (Illustrator)

Rosa Parks

By Eloise Greenfield, Gil Ashby (Illustrator)

Rosa Parks: My Story

By Rosa Parks, Jim Haskins

She Would Not Be Moved: How We Tell the Story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

By Kohl, Herbert R.; Brown, Cynthia Stokes

Teaching About the Montgomery Bus Boycott

DVD

Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s

By Henry Hampton, Steve Fayer

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