The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed a lower court ruling that invalidated Alabama laws requiring segregated buses, thus ending the Montgomery bus boycott.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on questions of U.S. constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party." In 1803, the court asserted itself the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution via the landmark case Marbury v. Madison. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law.

Browder v. Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707 (1956), was a landmark federal court case that ruled that segregation on public transportation was unconstitutional. The case was heard before a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on the segregation of Montgomery and Alabama state buses. The panel consisted of Middle District of Alabama Judge Frank Minis Johnson, Northern District of Alabama Judge Seybourn Harris Lynne, and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Rives. The main plaintiffs in the case were Aurelia Browder, Claudette Colvin, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith. Their attorney, Fred Gray, also approached Jeanetta Reese to join the suit, but intimidation by segregationists caused her to withdraw.

Alabama is a state in the Southeastern and Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama is the 30th largest by area, and the 24th-most populous of the 50 U.S. states.