Rosa Parks (1913—2005) helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions In addition to the segregated seating on Montgomery city buses, African-Americans were often made to pay their bus fare at the front of the bus and then get off the bus and re-enter through the back door. It was not uncommon for bus drivers to drive off before the African-American passenger was able to get back on the bus. Rosa Parks wasn't the first black person to refuse to move to the back of the bus—nine months before, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin had done the same thing, and there were many others—but she Montgomery bus driver James Blake ordered Parks and three other African Americans seated nearby to move ("Move y'all, I want those two seats,") to the back of the bus. Three riders complied; Parks did not. The following excerpt of what happened next is from Douglas Brinkley's 2000 Rosa Park's biography. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. In a history-making act of defiance, Rosa, instead of going to the back of the bus (which had been designated for black people), decided to sit in the front. When the bus began to fill up with white passengers, the driver asked Parks to move, but she refused. Today marks the anniversary of Rosa Parks’ decision to sit down for her rights on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, putting the effort to end segregation on a fast track. Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, after she refused to give up her seat on a crowded bus to a white passenger. Parks' bus arrest wasn't the first and had a heavy cost Parks wasn’t the first Black bus rider to get arrested for not leaving a bus seat in Montgomery. Fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin did the 'I did not get on the bus to get arrested; I got on the bus to go home' Rosa Parks, age 42, was commuting home from her job as a seamstress at the Montgomery Fair department store on Dec. 1, 1955 Rosa Parks' Bus . In 1955, African Americans were still required by a Montgomery, Alabama, city ordinance to sit in the back half of city buses and to yield their seats to white riders if the Born in February 1913, Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in 1955 led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. About 9:30 p.m, Rosa Parks was bailed out by E.D. Nixon and the Durrs. Raymond arrived shortly thereafter. They all went back to the Parks’ apartment to talk over the next step. Nixon, upon seeing Parks was okay, saw this as a bigger opportunity to challenge segregation. Rosa Parks (center, in dark coat and hat) rides a bus at the end of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Montgomery, Alabama, Dec. 26, 1956. Don Cravens/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images. Most of us know Rosa Parks as the African American woman who quietly, but firmly, refused to give up her bus seat to a white person Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama. That small act of County Connection honors Ms. Rosa Parks’ defiance of racial segregation laws while riding a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. Her courage forever changed public transportation and the course of American history. Note: You can find a commemorative sticker on each County Connection bus placed in honor of Rosa Parks, right in the area The NAACP sent Rosa Parks to investigate the case, and to try to rally support for the prosecution of the assailants. This wasn’t the mild-mannered woman with her purse resting on her lap; staring out a bus window. Parks was active, but still refused to be moved by white men. This time, it was the deputy sheriff in Abbeville, Lewey Corbitt. In Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955, 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 Gene Herrick, AP. Rosa Parks is fingerprinted by police Lt. D.H. Lackey in Montgomery, Ala., in this Feb. 22, 1956 file photo, two months after refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white Rosa Parks, often hailed as the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement,” played a pivotal role in challenging racial segregation in the United States. Her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white man on December 1, 1955, sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and eventually led to significant advancements in the fight against racial discrimination. At the front of a bus, previously reserved for white riders, is Rosa Parks, face turned to the window to her left, seemingly lost in thought as she rides through Montgomery, Ala. In the seat behind her is a young white man looking to his right, his face hard, almost expressionless. On December 1, 1955, during a typical evening rush hour in Montgomery, Alabama, a 42-year-old woman took a seat on the bus on her way home from the Montgomery Fair department store where she worked as a seamstress. Before she reached her destination, she quietly set off a social revolution when the bus driver instructed her to move back, and she refused. Rosa Parks, an African American, was Rosa Parks' act of defiance is usually seen as a spontaneous act of rebellion, but it wasn't. Local civil rights leaders had long been planning to challenge a city ordinance requiring black passengers sit in the back of the bus, and if the white, front section of the bus was full, they had to give up their seats entirely.
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