Montgomery Improvement Association
Montgomery leaders form the Montgomery Improvement Association
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗The organization that would run a 13-month boycott was created by 18 people gathered in a pastor's study.
3:00 p.m. at Mt. Zion AME Zion
At three in the afternoon on 5 December 1955, eighteen Black ministers and community leaders met at Mt. Zion AME Zion Church in Montgomery. A smaller group withdrew to pastor L. Roy Bennett's study and created the Montgomery Improvement Association to continue the bus protest.
The one-day boycott called for that Monday — the day of Rosa Parks's trial — had been organized by Jo Ann Robinson and the Women's Political Council, E. D. Nixon and others, before the MIA existed.
About 90 percent of Montgomery's Black community stayed off the buses that day.
Elected without opposition
Rufus A. Lewis moved that his own pastor, Martin Luther King Jr., become chairman. The group elected the 26-year-old King without opposition, and made E. D. Nixon treasurer alongside several other officers.
King did not create the association. Eighteen leaders formed it and then elected him.
U. J. Fields took the minutes that survive as the record of the meeting.
Two meetings, not one
The afternoon group agreed the protest would continue until conditions improved, and drew up recommendations for that night's mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church.
Several thousand people filled Holt Street, its basement and the surrounding area — King later put the crowd above 5,000. They endorsed continued non-use of the buses and heard his first major address as MIA leader.
The evening crowd ratified a body that already existed; it did not found one.
Sources
Researched 24 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited Date corrected
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Date corrected. The research places this at 1955-12-05.