him during many of the civil rights events. Civil rights activism Years before the Montgomery bus boycott, Nixon had worked for voting rights and civil rights for African Americans in Montgomery. Like other blacks in the state, they had been essentially disenfranchised since the start of the 20th century by changes in the Alabama state constitution and electoral laws. He also served as an unelected advocate for the African-American community, helping individuals negotiate with white office holders, policemen, and civil servants. Nixon joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), becoming president of the Montgomery chapter and, within two years, president of the state organization. In 1940, Nixon organized 750 African Americans to march to the Montgomery County courthouse and attempt to register to vote. They were unsuccessful, as the white Democrats used subjective rules to exclude them. In 1954, he was the first black to run for a seat on the county Democratic Executive Committee. The next year, he questioned the Democratic candidates for the Montgomery City Commission on their positions on civil rights issues. Challenging bus segregation In the early 1950s, Nixon and Jo Ann Robinson, president of the Women's Political Council, decided to mount a court challenge to the discriminatory seating practices on Montgomery's municipal buses, along with a boycott of the bus company. A Montgomery ordinance reserved the front seats on these buses for white passengers only, forcing African-American riders to sit in the back. The middle section was available to blacks unless the bus became so crowded that white passengers were standing; in that case, blacks were supposed to give up their seats and stand if necessary. Blacks constituted the majority of riders on the city-owned bus system. Before the activists could mount the court challenge, they needed someone to voluntarily violate the bus seating law and be arrested for it. Nixon carefully searched for a suitable plaintiff. At the same time, some women mounted their own individual challenges. For instance, 15-year-old student Claudette Colvin was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger in March 1955, nine months before Parks' action. Nixon rejected Colvin because she became an unwed mother, another woman who was arrested because he did not believe she had the fortitude to see the case through, and a third woman, Mary Louise Smith, because her father was allegedly an alcoholic. (In 1956, Colvin and