Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr (with the help of amanuensis, Stanley Levison) tells of the Montgomery Bus Boycotts in 1955-56.
He begins by describing the setting. The life of an average person living in Alabama at that time is horrifying. Segregation and racism had entire communities constantly paranoid about racial violence. Black people were treated as second class citizens, and any part of life where white people could segregate themselves away from black people, they did. This led to a low quality of life for black people, not to mention that it is openly hostile and hateful.
King remembers when a woman named Rosa Parks was put in jail. She resisted white men who told her that she was violating segregation law by not sitting in the back of the public bus, where "colored" folks were supposed to sit. Rosa Parks simply resisted, until she was forceably removed from the bus by the police who put her in jail.
Then King describes his own story. He was a young minister, and a passionate, avid learner who was becoming extremely moved by the plight of white people at that time. Inspired by Gandhi, he organized a boycott and protest where black people would not participate in the local economy of Montgomery, proving that they were an essential part of the community.
In the famous chapter Pilgrimage to Nonviolence, Martin Luther King, Jr describes the religious transcendence toward nonviolence. He says that true nonviolence is seeking to make an enemy into one's friend, to be in harmony with all living beings.
He describes the police brutality and public outrage during the boycotts. Many racists viewed the boycott as a disgusting thing, and they sometimes became violent. But, in the aftermath, although the public demonstration came at a price, King knew that they had accomplished something. They gathered the eyes of the world to the problem of American racism.
