Debbie Elliott

Her arrest led to a mass meeting where black citizens voted to boycott Montgomery buses, a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement.

It was electric.

Doris Dozier Crenshaw was 12 years old at the time.

I remember being excited about Dr. King and his speech and the willingness of all of us to stay off those buses.

Staying off the buses meant long walks to school for children like herself.

The stage was set for what we called the work for freedom for our people.

And I think we're still striding toward freedom.

Today, she leads a youth engagement initiative in Montgomery's historically black Centennial Hill neighborhood.

Next door is the parsonage where King lived with his family.

Two doors down the other way is the Harris home, where Valda Harris grew up.

I can really sense that I became that civil rights activist at the age of eight.

Her home was a safe house and a place for civil rights leaders to strategize.

For generations, Harris says, her family has been active in the fight for social justice.

Her father was a Tuskegee airman and a pharmacist who turned his drugstore into a transportation hub during the bus boycott.

She recalls a solidarity of purpose during those seminal civil rights struggles.

The boycott lasted over a year until the U.S.

Supreme Court found segregated public buses unconstitutional.

A decade later, marchers from Selma to Montgomery galvanized support for the Voting Rights Act,

outlawing barriers that kept black voters from the polls.

Harris takes pride in Montgomery's role in American history, but says she feels like the country is going backwards as it marks its founding.