Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avregan.

This day, December 20, 1956, the Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott comes to an end. The boycott had been going since December 5, 1955, which was the Monday after Rosa Parks was arrested for

refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a Montgomery public bus.

And it was ending now in 1956, 381 days later, as the Supreme Court held up a ruling in a case

called Browder versus Gail that deemed segregation on public buses and other public transportation to be unconstitutional.

So people who had been boycotting were now going back onto public buses, but of course the civil rights

efforts would continue, so we have a boycott in Montgomery of over a year a legal battle that ended up in Washington

Lots of names in this story beyond the one that everyone knows Rosa Parks so that is what we are going to discuss today and

here to talk about what this moment meant is as always Nicole Hammer of Columbia.

Hello Nicky. Hello Jody and our special guest for this episode is Christina Greer, Associate Professor of Political

Science at Fordham, co-host of the excellent New York City podcast, FAQ NYC, which I will definitely

be listening to as the Mayor's here in New York, heats up.

But there's also a new podcast from Christina, I gather.

What's in it for us?

It's from the Griot.

So Christina, listeners now know you are a very busy person.

Thank you for making the time to come on and join us.

Of course, of course.

So I guess we should start with this moment.

Is this a moment that we should look at through the lens of on the ground pressure over more than a year or since it ended up in the courts should we see this as a legal victory.

It can be both and and what I always try and remind my students is that a lot of people think about the civil rights movement in like the context of just the 1960s.

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