Name: The Montgomery Bus Boycott: A Retrospective
Start: 2026-02-19T12:00:00-06:00
Location: 624 Washington Avenue, Montgomery, AL, United States, Alabama 36130

The Montgomery Bus Boycott: A Retrospective

The Alabama Department of Archives & History (ADAH) will continue its 2026 Food for Thought lunchtime lecture series on Thursday, February 19, at 12:00pm CT. The program will serve as a retrospective on the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which ended with the desegregation of the city's public bus system in December 1956. The program will also reflect on a symposium hosted by the ADAH in the thirtieth anniversary year of the end of the boycott, in February 1986. Dr. Edwin C. Bridges, then-director of the ADAH, moderated the 1986 symposium. Bridges will again moderate the 2026 panel discussion, which will feature Mills Thornton, a panelist at the 1986 symposium; David Azbell, son of symposium panelist Joe Azbell; and Richard Bailey, who experienced the symposium as a member of the audience. Azbell, Bailey, and Thornton will reflect on video clips from the symposium and discuss the legacy of the boycott. The program will be held in the ADAH’s Joseph M. Farley Alabama Power Auditorium in Montgomery. It will also be livestreamed on the ADAH’s Facebook page and YouTube channel. Admission is FREE.
Dr. Mills Thornton is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Michigan. He is the author, among other works, of Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham and Selma, which was awarded the Liberty Legacy Prize of the Organization of American Historians.
David Azbell served as press secretary for Gov. Bob Riley and Gov. Fob James and was the spokesman and personal aide for George Wallace during the four-term governor’s retirement. His late father, Joe Azbell, was the city editor of the Montgomery Advertiser during the Montgomery Bus Boycott and was the newspaper’s principal reporter covering events surrounding the protest movement.
Dr. Richard Bailey has researched and lectured extensively on Reconstruction, civil rights, African American history, and other aspects of Alabama history. The immediate past president of the Alabama Historical Association, Bailey has been a key part of the Alabama Humanities Alliance’s Speakers Bureau since the late 1990s.
Dr. Ed Bridges earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago. While pursuing his doctorate, he taught high school history, conducted contract research, and served as a part-time instructor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In 1976, he joined the Georgia Department of Archives and History, rising to assistant director. In 1982, he became director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, a position he held for thirty years.
For additional information, contact Alex Colvin at [email protected] or (334) 353-4689. A complete schedule of our 2026 lunchtime lecture series is available at archives.alabama.gov. Food for Thought 2026 is sponsored by the Friends of the Alabama Archives.

The Alabama Department of Archives and History is the state’s government-records repository, a special-collections library and research facility, and home to the Museum of Alabama, the state history museum. It is located in downtown Montgomery, directly across Washington Avenue from the State Capitol. The Museum of Alabama is open Monday through Saturday from 8:30 to 4:30. The EBSCO Research Room is open Tuesday through Saturday from 8:30 to 4:30. To learn more, visit www.archives.alabama.gov or call (334) 242-4364.
###