Edgar Nixon was a leader and a union organizer who played a crucial role in organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Montgomery Alabama that lasted 381 days and forced better accommodations for Black buss riders. He also was the president of the Montgomery NAACP, the Montgomery Welfare League and the Montgomery Voters league. He also led the Montgomery branch of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

In the early 1950s Nixon and Jo Ann Robinson, who was the president of the Women’s Political Council decided to challenge the discriminatory seating practices of the Montgomery municipal buses and the bus company. The bus company reserved the front seats on these buses for White passengers and the back seats were for Black passengers. After looking at three candidates Nixon rejected all three. One because he didn't think that she had the fortitude to see the case to its end, the second because she was pregnant and unwed and the third because her father was an alcoholic. The opportunity arose with the denying of a seat for Rosa Parks. Mrs. Parks was a person of un-deniable positive credentials.

After gaining the release of Rosa Parks Nixon called a number of local ministers to help with the boycott. The first minister that Nixon called upon was the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy who immidatly gave his support. The third man he called was Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. King was initially causious and responded that he would think about it. According to Nixon he called on 18 other people before re-calling King back. King told Nixon that he had his support. Before Nixon called upon King the second time King had already arranged a meeting of his church congregation on the issue.

Nixon had to leave town for a few days and on his return he met with Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Rev. E.N. French to do the planing of the boycott. They came up with a list of demands for the bus company and called their new organization the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA).

Nixon reccommended M.L. King to be the president of the association because he felt that King had not been compromised by the local power structure. At one of the large initial meetings the ministers wanted to organize a low key boycott that would not upset the White power structure in Mongomery. Nixon took issue with this low key approach. In his anger Nixon threatened to publicly denounce the ministers as cowards. In response to this charge King stood up and stated that he was no coward. Cooler heads prevailed and by the end of the meeting King had accepted the MIA presidency and Nixon became the treasurer. That evening ML King delivered the keynote address to the full meeting.

What was expected to be a short boycott lasted 381 days. Despite fierce political opposition, police coercion, personal threats and their own sacrifices, the blacks of Montgomery held the boycott. Having 75 percent of the ridership in Montgomery, it was thought that the boycott would be successful and it was. Bus ridership plummeted, and the bus company was on the verge of financial ruin. On February 1, 1956, a bomb exploded in front of Nixon's home. In the meantime, the court challenge worked its way through the court system until it reached the United States Supreme Court. Following the Supreme Court decision that Montgomery's segregation policy was unconstitutional, the organizers ended the boycott.

Following the Court’s decision Nixon gave a rousing speech at New Your City’s Madison Square Garden: where he said:

“I’m from Montgomery, Alabama, a city that’s known as the ‘Cradle of the Confederacy' that had stood still for more than ninty three years until Rosa L. Parks was arrested and thrown in jail like a common criminal. Fifty thousand people rose up and caught hold to the Cradle of the Confederacy and began to rock it till the Jim Crow rockers began to reel and the segregated slats began to fall out.”

Following the successful conclusion of the boycott Nixon’s relationship with the MIA was contentious. There were many shape disagreements within the group. Nixon was resentful to King and Abernathy. He said that they received most of the credit for the boycott as opposed to the local activists who had spent years struggling against racism. Nixon resigned his post as MIA treasure with a bitter letter to M.L. King complaining that he had been treated as a child. Nixon continued to feud with the Black middle class community of Montgomery for the next ten years.

By the late 1960’s his leadership role in the organization was eliminated following a series of political defeats within the organization.