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Boycotting buses was one of the most effective protest methods used during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement, though the tactic was employed earlier against streetcars. The bus boycotts and the subsequent social and economic ramifications demonstrated the power of nonviolent and direct-action protest tactics. Targeting public transportation was crucial, because these business were owned by whites but utilized primarily by blacks; thus, blacks wielded significant economic power: "Let us touch to the quick of the white man's pocket. Tis there his conscience often lies." The major bus boycotts were organized in three capital cities in the South, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Tallahassee, Florida; and Montgomery, Alabama, in which the boycotts caused enormous economic and social disruption.

The success of the first bus boycott in Baton Rouge (1953), though short (seven days), greatly influenced two ministers from Montgomery: Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy, who would later become leaders of the Civil Rights movement. The Montgomery bus boycott began in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man. The boycott lasted more than a year and culminated in a Supreme Court ruling that banned segregated busing. The Tallahassee bus boycott started five months after the Montgomery boycott and put the bus companies out of business.  The larger significance of the Tallahassee boycott was that nonviolent protest methods could be utilized with great success in smaller as well as larger southern cities.

The rear seating of the buses in Baton Rouge was marked "colored section" and the front was marked "white section." In June 1953, the Rev. T. J. Jemison called on African Americans in Baton Rouge not to ride the buses. Nightly meetings were held at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church, and the boycott mobilized the African-American community. A "free car lift" of private cars was organized to replace the bus system. The Baton Rouge boycott highlighted the black church as an organizing and mobilizing force, and its success sparked the more famous Montgomery bus boycott. The boycott was, in Jemison's words, "100 percent effective." . . .

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