On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man who had boarded the bus after she did. At that time, public buses in the South were segregated, and African-Americans not only had to ride in the back of the bus, but also had to give up their seats to any white person who wanted to sit. Ms. Parks was arrested and taken to jail for refusing to give up her seat. On December 5, 1955, African-Americans in Montgomery began a boycott of the public buses led by a minister who had recently come to the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The peaceful boycott continued for 381 days during which time 90% of the African-Americans in Montgomery refused to ride the buses. At the end, the buses in Montgomery were desegregated.

Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation because of race, color, religion, or national origin. Places of public accommodation are hotels, motels, restaurants, movie theaters, stadiums, and concert halls.

Until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, persons from minority groups were excluded from, or segregated in, restaurants, motels, theaters, and other places of public accommodations. On February 1, 1960, 4 African-American students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College went into the Woolworth's store in Greensboro, North Carolina, sat down at the lunch counter and ordered cups of coffee. The waitress refused to serve them coffee unless they stood up to drink it because only whites were allowed to sit at the lunch counter. The black students sat at the lunch counter until the store closed, but were never served their coffee. The next day they returned with more students and the peaceful protest called a "sit-in" was begun. Across the South, peaceful sit-ins by students took place in more than 100 cities in 1960. Although the protesters were beaten, and sometimes sent to jail, they continued to peacefully sit-in until they achieved their goals - desegregation of places of public accommodation.