History glossary
boycott
refusing to buy or use a service to press for change.
- Category
- Civil rights
- Region
- United States
- Date range
- 1954–1968
What it means
A boycott uses economic pressure. In Montgomery, Black residents refused to ride city buses and withheld their fares, forcing the bus system and city authorities to confront their demands.
Stories using this term
Apartheid South Africa
From white minority rule to mass resistance, Mandela's release and the first democratic election, apartheid reshaped South Africa and the world.
The Holocaust
From legal discrimination to genocide, the Holocaust traces twelve years of escalating persecution that killed six million Jews and millions of others across Nazi-occupied Europe.
The American Revolution and Early Republic
From colonial tensions to independence, this traces the birth and early struggles of the United States of America.
The Causes of the Second World War
From the flawed peace of 1919 to the invasion of Poland in 1939, this story traces the interlocking causes of the Second World War across two decades of crisis, ideology, and failed deterrence.
The British Empire
Britain built the largest empire in history through sea power, trade, slavery, industrial wealth, conquest, and rule, before decolonisation reshaped the modern world.
The Civil Rights Movement
From school desegregation to Montgomery, Selma and Memphis, organised communities challenged racial exclusion and transformed American democracy.
