Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights leader who fought against racial segregation. In the 1950s in Montgomery, Alabama, black people were required to sit at the back of buses and give up their seats to white passengers. Rosa Parks, a black woman, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Martin Luther King Jr. led the boycott and advocated for racial equality and desegregation through nonviolent protest.