The Alabama Department of Archives and History will continue its 2026 Food for Thought lunchtime lecture series today, February 19, at 12 p.m. Central time with a retrospective on the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
The program will examine the boycott, which ended with the desegregation of Montgomery’s public bus system in December 1956, and reflect on a symposium the department hosted in February 1986, the 30th anniversary year of the boycott’s end. Dr. Edwin C. Bridges, then director of the department, moderated the 1986 symposium.
Bridges will 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 attended the 1986 event. Azbell, Bailey and Thornton will reflect on video clips from the symposium and discuss the boycott’s legacy.
The program will take place in the department’s Joseph M. Farley Alabama Power Auditorium in Montgomery and will be livestreamed on the department’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.
Admission is free.
For more information, contact Alex Colvin at [email protected] or 334-353-4689. A complete schedule of the department’s 2026 lecture series is available at archives.alabama.gov. Food for Thought 2026 is sponsored by the Friends of the Alabama Archives.
