By Adam Owens
Seventeen people were arrested Monday evening during what the state chapter of the NAACP called a nonviolent "pray in" protest at the General Assembly.
The protest was directed at Republican action on health care, unemployment benefits, education and voting rights.
In 1900, Montgomery, Alabama had passed a city ordinance to segregate bus passengers by race, and conductors were empowered to assign seats to achieve that goal. The first four rows of seats on each Montgomery bus were reserved for whites, and buses had "colored" sections for black people generally in the rear of the bus, although blacks composed more than 75% of the ridership.