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 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 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. 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 As the secretary of the Montgomery chapter, Rosa documented cases of racial injustice, giving voice to people whose stories were often ignored. The Bus Incident. On December 1, 1955, Rosa was on her way home from work. She boarded a city bus in Montgomery and took a seat in the “colored” section, as the law required. On December 1st, 1955, the famous bus incident took place. Parks had just completed her seamstress work and had boarded the bus. She sat down in the colored section. Soon a white man entered the bus. Since the bus was full, the driver asked Rosa along with few other African-Americans to give up their seats, so that the white man could sit down. 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 1 December 1955, Parks finished a tiring Thursday as a department store seamstress and boarded a bus to go home, taking a seat right behind the whites-only section. All the seats were soon taken, and so when a white man got on and stood in the aisle, bus driver James Blake instructed four black passengers, including the 42-year-old Parks, to On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Alabama for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. Discover how her act of defiance sparked the US civil rights movement. “During the Montgomery bus boycott, we came together and remained unified for 381 days. It has never been done again. The Montgomery boycott became the model for human rights throughout the world.” When Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man, she was mentally prepared for the moment. 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 Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913, to Leona (née Edwards), a teacher, and James McCauley, a carpenter.In addition to African ancestry, one of Parks's great-grandfathers was Scots-Irish, and one of her great-grandmothers was a part–Native American slave. Rosa Parks is best known for the day she refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus, sparking the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott. Yet there is much more to her story than this one act of defiance. In this straightforward, compelling autobiography, Rosa Parks talks candidly about the Civil Rights Movement and her active role in it. Parks later said of the incident: Inside Claudette Colvin’s Little-Known Bus Protest; Rosa Parks’ Life After the Montgomery Bus Boycott; The Rosa Parks Story, was released in 2002. The Y ou probably think you know the story of Rosa Parks, the seamstress who refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Ala., 60 years ago—on Dec. 1, 1955—and thus galvanized the bus Thursday marks the 61st anniversary of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus to a white man — an action that got her arrested, sparked the Montgomery bus boycott 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. Sparking a Social Transformation. It’s one of the most famous moments in modern American civil rights history: On the chilly evening of December 1, 1955, at a bus stop on a busy street in the capital of Alabama, a 42-year-old seamstress boarded a segregated city bus to return home after a long day of work, taking a seat near the middle, just behind the front “white” section. The "Drunk History" video states that Rosa Parks boarded the bus and sat down in the white section. Actually, she took a seat directly behind the white section. However, as the bus filled up after a few more stops, the bus driver told Parks to give her seat to a white man who had been left standing. She refused and was arrested. The bus driver wanted Rosa to give her seat to a white person, but Rosa said no! Rosa was a member of a civil rights group which fought for black and white people to be treated the same. She was
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