What boycotting looks like 70 years after the Montgomery Bus Boycott

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Doris Crenshaw was 12 years old on Dec. 5, 1955, when she and her sister eagerly rushed door to door in their neighborhood, distributing flyers prepared by activists planning a boycott of city buses in Montgomery, Alabama.

“Don’t ride the bus to work, to town, to school or any place on Monday,” the flyers read, urging people to attend a mass meeting that evening.

There was a sense of urgency. Days earlier, Rosa Parks, the secretary of the local NAACP chapter, had been the latest Black person arrested for refusing to give up a bus seat to a white passenger on the segregated buses. For 381 days, an estimated 40,000 Black residents stayed off city buses — opting to walk, ride in car pools or take Black-owned cabs — until a legal challenge struck down bus-segregation laws.

“In this city there was a groundswell of a need to do something about what was going on in the buses, because a lot of people were arrested,” Crenshaw, now 82, recalled.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott marked its 70th anniversary Friday — many of the boycott organizers' descendants, including those of late civil rights icons the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy Sr., plan to reunite in the Alabama city where it all started. Widely considered the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement, the bus boycott demonstrated the power of sustained nonviolent protest and economic pressure that continues to provide a model for the activism today.

A group of national organizers encouraged people to avoid the temptation of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, aiming the action at corporations like Target and Amazon for phasing out diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and financially backing the Trump administration.

“Any time there can be a strategic and organized response to corporate behavior or exclusionary policy, communities should be free to identify the best approach to address the harm that’s being created," NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a phone interview Thursday.

“Boycotting is one tool in the toolbox. At the NAACP, we call it selective buying campaigns.”

At a Friday celebration at the Holt Street Baptist Church, the site of the mass meeting that launched the boycott, speakers connected past to present. The church now serves as a civil rights museum.

“What happened here changed the world,” the Rev. Willie D. McClung said from the pulpit. Audio of King’s Dec. 5, 1955, speech thundered through the church, and a refurbished bus from the era of the boycott was parked outside.

The Rev. Bernice A. King, King's daughter, said what transpired in Montgomery continues to be a “blueprint for any movement for freedom, justice and equality.” She said she thinks about the words of her mother, Coretta Scott King: “Struggle is a never ending process.”

“Freedom is never really won," King said Friday. “You earn it and win it in every generation. And so the freedom movement has to be intergenerational, and it’s important that the younger generation learn from those that are still left behind.”

Parks' Dec. 1, 1955, arrest was the final catalyst for the boycott that had been quietly discussed by some activists in the city. The seats at the front of the city buses were reserved for white people. And Black passengers, who were forced to sit in the back, were expected to give up their seats if the white section became full.

Contrary to the story that is often told, Parks, who died in 2005, wrote that she was not particularly tired from work that day when she took a stand by keeping her seat.

“No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in,” Parks wrote in her autobiography.

Parks was a beloved figure in the town, Crenshaw recalled. She led the NAACP Youth Council and Crenshaw and other members would meet at the Parks' apartment each week.

Pulling off the boycott for more than a year took an extreme amount of dedication and discipline, Crenshaw recalled.

“We walked, and we kept walking,” said Crenshaw, who walked across town to school each day. “We never got back on those buses."

Crenshaw went on to a lifetime of civil rights activism, organizing National Council of Negro Women chapters in the south and serving as a member of President Jimmy Carter’s domestic policy staff. She also founded The Southern Youth Leadership Development Institute, mentoring young people as Parks once did for her.

During Friday's celebrations, Alabama Rep. Shomari Figures said the victories won by people like Parks, King and Crenshaw will not be maintained unless people fully “understand the legacy of what happened here."

The Rev. Jamal Bryant, a Georgia pastor who helped organize the Target boycott, has found some “dizzying” opposition and skepticism from Black pastors and leaders, but said it's been a learning experience to fight through and help people understand.

“Everything we are doing, we stole from y’all," Bryant told the crowd in Montgomery. "So thank you so very much for giving us the blueprint on how to get it done.”

While the specific methods have changed, the underlying goal of leveraging the economic power of the community to drive social and policy change remains the same, said Deborah Scott, the CEO of Georgia Stand-Up. The organization is focused on economic and social justice issues and emphasizes engaging and developing the next generation of activists and leaders.

Scott said she was a teenager when she arrived in Atlanta more than 30 years ago to begin organizing with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference around the anti-apartheid movement. She worked to free South African anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela and to establish a holiday honoring King.

Just like the original Montgomery boycott, which sought access to affordable, non-discriminatory transportation by bringing large groups of people together to drive change, the success of boycotts after it required an unshakeable sense of unity.

With widespread use of social media platforms, today’s boycotts look different. Scott said the biggest change in boycotting with the newer generation is the focus on using consumer purchasing power to pressure companies to change their policies or practices.

“We’re encouraging people to really dig deep about where they want to spend their dollars," she said.

Madison Pugh, at 13, is about the same age that Crenshaw was when she became involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The eighth grader decided with her grandmother not to shop at Target. Living in Montgomery, Pugh is growing up surrounded by the history of the civil rights movement that transpired decades before she was born. The stories from Crenshaw and others are more than just inspiring, she said.

“It's saddening to the heart to know that a whole group of people weren't allowed to go somewhere and have an education or be treated as humans because they were a different skin color," Pugh said. "It definitely lets me know that the job will never be finished and you have to keep pushing.”

Green reported from New York. Race and Ethnicity news editor Aaron Morrison in New York contributed.

Deborah Scott holds a Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative medallion awarded to her as a symbolic passing of the baton to the next generation of civil rights leaders at The Movement Center, in Atlanta, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Olivia Bowdoin)

Deborah Scott, CEO of Georgia Stand-Up, holds a portrait of civil rights activist Rosa Parks, while marking the 70th anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott at The Movement Center, in Atlanta, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Olivia Bowdoin)

FILE - Rosa Parks arrives at circuit court to be arraigned in the racial bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., Feb. 24, 1956. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - A man drives an empty bus through downtown Montgomery, Ala., April 26, 1956, during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. (AP Photo/Horace Cort, File)

Deborah Scott, CEO of Georgia Stand-Up, raises her fist while standing in front of a wall honoring unsung heroes of the civil rights movement at The Movement Center, in Atlanta, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Olivia Bowdoin)

Dorris Crenshaw points to a photo of the Edmund Pettus Bridge as she prepares for the 70th anniversary of Rosa Park's Bus Boycott, Monday, Nov. 24, 2025, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)

Dorris Crenshaw poses for photos for the 70th anniversary of Rosa Park's Bus Boycott, Monday, Nov. 24, 2025, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)

NEW YORK (AP) — Devin Williams could be the closer for the New York Mets next season. Or he might be a setup man for Edwin Díaz.

Each possibility sounds intriguing to Williams, who finalized a $51 million, three-year contract with the Mets on Wednesday.

The 31-year-old Díaz is a free agent after going 6-3 with a 1.63 ERA and 28 saves this year. The right-hander has 144 saves in six seasons with the Mets.

“If he comes back, I think we’re going to have a really good back end of the bullpen,” Williams said Friday in his first public comments since joining New York. “More good arms is always a good thing.”

Williams said his mindset won’t be impacted by his role.

“Just being prepared mentally and physically,” Williams said. “If you’re going in before the ninth inning, you just need to be ready earlier. I don’t think that really changes your mindset at all. It’s just a preparation thing.”

Williams said he is working on a cutter and a “gyro slider” to go along with his fastball and famed changeup. He is expected to help stabilize a bullpen that is in flux behind Díaz.

Left-handers Brooks Raley, A.J. Minter and Richard Lovelady as well as right-hander Huascar Brazobán are all under contract, but none of the quartet spent the entire 2025 season with the Mets.

Raley returned in June from Tommy John surgery. Minter didn’t pitch after April 26 due to a torn left lat. Lovelady and Brazoban each spent time with Triple-A Syracuse.

“They’re a team that wants to win,” Williams said. “Steve (Mets owner Steve Cohen) is doing all he can to put a winning product out on the field and I’d love to be a part of that.”

Williams spent last season with the New York Yankees, going 4-6 with a career-worst 4.79 ERA and 18 saves in 22 chances. He lost the closer’s job, regained it and then lost it again before finishing the year with four scoreless outings during the American League playoffs.

The two-time All-Star was traded from the Milwaukee Brewers to the Yankees last December. He acknowledged that the transition from Milwaukee — where he was the 2020 NL Rookie of the Year and twice won the Trevor Hoffman NL Reliever of the Year award while Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns was running the Brewers — was difficult.

But after the Yankees were eliminated from the postseason, Williams said he was open to re-signing with the team.

“It’s familiar now,” Williams said Friday. “I know what I’m going to need to do in order to get to the field, all the things like that. Getting home, just life stuff. So I’ve got all that figured out already. I’m comfortable there.”

Williams is 31-16 with a 2.45 ERA and 86 saves in 308 relief appearances over seven major league seasons. He has 465 strikeouts and 137 walks in 297 2/3 innings.

He becomes the latest member of the Mets brought over from the Yankees organization by Cohen and Stearns in recent years, including outfielder Juan Soto, pitcher Clay Holmes, catcher Luis Torrens and manager Carlos Mendoza.

Williams gets a $6 million signing bonus from the Mets payable in three equal installments on April 1 from 2026-28 and salaries of $15 million annually, of which $5 million per year will be deferred.

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FILE - New York Yankees pitcher Devin Williams delivers against the Toronto Blue Jays during the seventh inning of Game 3 of baseball's American League Division Series, Oct. 7, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)