Exhibition Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words

E. D. Nixon escorting Rosa Parks to the courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama, to attend the trial of Martin Luther King, Jr., March 1956. Photograph. Visual Materials from the Rosa Parks Papers, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (026.00.00)

Alabama Anti-Boycott Act

On February 21, 1956, a Montgomery grand jury indicted Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., E. D. Nixon, and eighty-six other bus boycott participants for violating the Alabama Anti-Boycott Act of 1921. King was the first to be brought to trial. He was convicted on March 22, but Judge Eugene Carter suspended his $500 fine pending appeal. The other cases were ultimately dismissed.