Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to give up her
seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city's racial
segregation laws. The successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, organized by a young
Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., followed Park's historic
act of civil disobedience.
"The mother of the civil rights movement," as Rosa Parks is known,
was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1913. She worked as a seamstress and in 1943
joined the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP).
According to a Montgomery city ordinance in 1955, African Americans were
required to sit at the back of public buses and were also obligated to give up
those seats to white riders if the front of the bus filled up. Parks was in the
first row of the black section when the white driver demanded that she give up
her seat to a white man. Parks' refusal was spontaneous but was not merely
brought on by her tired feet, as is the popular legend. In fact, local civil
rights leaders had been planning a challenge to Montgomery's racist bus laws for
several months, and Parks had been privy to this discussion.
Learning of Parks' arrest, the NAACP and other African American activists
immediately called for a bus boycott to be held by black citizens on Monday,
December 5. Word was spread by fliers, and activists formed the Montgomery
Improvement Association to organize the protest. The first day of the bus
boycott was a great success, and that night the 26-year-old Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr., told a large crowd gathered at a church, "The great glory of American
democracy is the right to protest for right." King emerged as the leader of the
bus boycott and received numerous death threats from opponents of integration.
At one point, his home was bombed, but he and his family escaped bodily
harm.
The boycott stretched on for more than a year, and participants carpooled or
walked miles to work and school when no other means were possible. As African
Americans previously constituted 70 percent of the Montgomery bus ridership, the
municipal transit system suffered gravely during the boycott. On November 13,
1956, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Alabama state and Montgomery city bus
segregation laws as being in violation of the equal protection clause of the
14th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution. On December 20, King issued the following
statement: "The year old protest against city buses is officially called off,
and the Negro citizens of Montgomery are urged to return to the buses tomorrow
morning on a non-segregated basis." The boycott ended the next day. Rosa Parks
was among the first to ride the newly desegregated buses.
Martin Luther King, Jr., and his nonviolent civil rights movement had won its
first great victory. There would be many more to come.
Rosa Parks died on October 24, 2005. Three days later the U.S. Senate passed
a resolution to honor Parks by allowing her body to lie in honor in the U.S.
Capitol Rotunda
seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city's racial
segregation laws. The successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, organized by a young
Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., followed Park's historic
act of civil disobedience.
"The mother of the civil rights movement," as Rosa Parks is known,
was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1913. She worked as a seamstress and in 1943
joined the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP).
According to a Montgomery city ordinance in 1955, African Americans were
required to sit at the back of public buses and were also obligated to give up
those seats to white riders if the front of the bus filled up. Parks was in the
first row of the black section when the white driver demanded that she give up
her seat to a white man. Parks' refusal was spontaneous but was not merely
brought on by her tired feet, as is the popular legend. In fact, local civil
rights leaders had been planning a challenge to Montgomery's racist bus laws for
several months, and Parks had been privy to this discussion.
Learning of Parks' arrest, the NAACP and other African American activists
immediately called for a bus boycott to be held by black citizens on Monday,
December 5. Word was spread by fliers, and activists formed the Montgomery
Improvement Association to organize the protest. The first day of the bus
boycott was a great success, and that night the 26-year-old Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr., told a large crowd gathered at a church, "The great glory of American
democracy is the right to protest for right." King emerged as the leader of the
bus boycott and received numerous death threats from opponents of integration.
At one point, his home was bombed, but he and his family escaped bodily
harm.
The boycott stretched on for more than a year, and participants carpooled or
walked miles to work and school when no other means were possible. As African
Americans previously constituted 70 percent of the Montgomery bus ridership, the
municipal transit system suffered gravely during the boycott. On November 13,
1956, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Alabama state and Montgomery city bus
segregation laws as being in violation of the equal protection clause of the
14th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution. On December 20, King issued the following
statement: "The year old protest against city buses is officially called off,
and the Negro citizens of Montgomery are urged to return to the buses tomorrow
morning on a non-segregated basis." The boycott ended the next day. Rosa Parks
was among the first to ride the newly desegregated buses.
Martin Luther King, Jr., and his nonviolent civil rights movement had won its
first great victory. There would be many more to come.
Rosa Parks died on October 24, 2005. Three days later the U.S. Senate passed
a resolution to honor Parks by allowing her body to lie in honor in the U.S.
Capitol Rotunda