Editing Ralph Abernathy (section)

===Montgomery bus boycott===
{{external media
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| video1 = [https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_151-cz3222s11s#at_674_s “Interview with Reverend Ralph Abernathy”] from [[Eyes on the Prize]] conducted in 1985 discusses his involvement in helping to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott.}}

After the arrest of [[Rosa Parks]] on December 1, 1955, for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, Abernathy, then a member of the Montgomery [[NAACP]], collaborated with King to create the [[Montgomery Improvement Association]], which organized the [[Montgomery bus boycott]].<ref name="legacy"/><ref name=EB /><ref>{{cite book |author-link1=Peter Brock (historian) |first1=Peter |last1=Brock |first2=Nigel |last2=Young |title=Pacifism in the Twentieth Century |publisher=Syracuse University Press |location=New York |year=1999 |isbn=0-8156-8125-9 |page=232}}</ref><ref name="WP">{{cite news | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wife-of-civil-rights-leader-abernathy-says-lack-of-invite-on-march-anniversary-is-a-slight/2013/08/31/89d71028-0a9f-11e3-8974-f97ab3b3c677_story.html | title=Ralph Abernathy's widow says march anniversary overlooks her husband's role | newspaper=The Washington Post | date=August 31, 2013 | access-date=March 13, 2015 | author=Fletcher, Michael | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150529045004/http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wife-of-civil-rights-leader-abernathy-says-lack-of-invite-on-march-anniversary-is-a-slight/2013/08/31/89d71028-0a9f-11e3-8974-f97ab3b3c677_story.html | archive-date=May 29, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> Along with fellow English professor [[Jo Ann Robinson]], they called for and distributed flyers asking the black citizens of Montgomery to stay off the buses.<ref name="leaflet">{{cite web | url=http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/leaflet_dont_ride_the_bus_come_to_a_mass_meeting_on_5_december/ | title=Leaflet, "Don't Ride the Bus" | publisher=Stanford University | work=The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute | date=December 2, 1955 | access-date=March 15, 2015 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402155441/http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/leaflet_dont_ride_the_bus_come_to_a_mass_meeting_on_5_december/ | archive-date=April 2, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> The boycott attracted national attention, and a federal court case that ended on December 17, 1956, when the [[U.S. Supreme Court]], in ''[[Browder v. Gayle]]'', upheld an earlier District Court decision that the bus segregation was unconstitutional.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TU_HozbJSC8C&q=%22352%20U.S.%20950%22%20(1956)&pg=PA127 | title=The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr: Threshold of a new decade, January 1959 – December 1960 | publisher=University of California Press | author1=King, Martin | author2=Holloran, Peter | author3=Luker, Ralph | author4=Russell, Penny | year=2005 | pages=127 | isbn=0520242394 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150514165836/https://books.google.com/books?id=TU_HozbJSC8C&lpg=PA127&ots=TXp5cDtFRX&dq=%22352%20U.S.%20950%22%20(1956)&pg=PA127#v=onepage&q=%22352%20U.S.%20950%22%20(1956)&f=false | archive-date=May 14, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> The 381-day transit boycott, challenging the [[Jim Crow laws|"Jim Crow" segregation laws]], had been successful.<ref name="demnow">{{cite news | url=http://www.democracynow.org/2005/12/1/50th_anniversary_of_montgomery_bus_boycott | title=50th Anniversary of Montgomery Bus Boycott | work=Democracy Now | date=December 1, 2005 | access-date=March 15, 2015 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150313124551/http://www.democracynow.org/2005/12/1/50th_anniversary_of_montgomery_bus_boycott | archive-date=March 13, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> And on December 20, 1956, the boycott came to an end.<ref name="bp">{{cite web | url=http://www.blackpast.org/aah/montgomery-bus-boycott-1955-56 | title=Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–56) | date=November 24, 2007 | publisher=BlackPast.org | access-date=March 15, 2015 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150326031450/http://www.blackpast.org/aah/montgomery-bus-boycott-1955-56 | archive-date=March 26, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref>

After the boycotts, Abernathy's home and church were bombed. His family were barely able to escape their home, but they were unharmed. Abernathy's church, Mt. Olive Church, Bell Street Church, and the home of [[Robert Graetz]] were also bombed on that evening, while King, Abernathy, and 58 other black leaders from the south were meeting at the [[Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration]], in [[Atlanta]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=ShakesAaseng |title=African-American Religious Leaders, Rev. ed.}}</ref><ref name="nyt"/><ref name="aberpdf">{{cite web | url=http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol4/28-May-1958_FromAbernathy.pdf | title=The Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project: From Ralph Abernathy | publisher=Stanford University | work=The Martin Luther King Jr. Research Institute | date=May 28, 1958 | access-date=March 17, 2015 | author=Abernathy, Ralph | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110506203901/http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol4/28-May-1958_FromAbernathy.pdf | archive-date=May 6, 2011 | df=mdy-all }}</ref><ref name=EB/>