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 (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 But on December 1, 1955, African American seamstress Rosa Parks was commuting home on Montgomery’s Cleveland Avenue bus from her job at a local department store. She was seated in the front row In Montgomery, Alabama, when a bus became full, the seats nearer the front were given to white passengers. 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. At the front of a bus, where black people had never ridden before, is Rosa Parks, face turned to the window to her left, seemingly lost in thought as she rides through Montgomery, Ala. Rosa Parks seated toward the front of an integrated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1956. Parks’ protest made her the public face of what later became known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott . 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. Rosa Parks, an African American, was arrested that day for violating a city law requiring racial segregation of public buses. On the city buses of Montgomery, Alabama, the front 10 seats were permanently reserved for white passengers. The diagram shows that Mrs. Parks was seated in the first row behind those 10 seats. Rosa Parks sits in the front of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, after the Supreme Court ruled segregation illegal on the city bus system on December 21st, 1956. Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955 for refusing to give up her seat in the front of a bus in Montgomery set off a successful boycott of the city busses. Getty Images 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. In March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks defied segregation laws by refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin did exactly The actual bus on which Rosa Parks sat was made available for the public to board and sit in the seat that Rosa Parks refused to give up. [ 153 ] On February 4, 2,000 birthday wishes gathered from people throughout the United States were transformed into 200 graphics messages at a celebration held on her 100th Birthday at the Davis Theater for The diagram below shows where Rosa Parks sat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955. At the time, the first ten seats on Montgomery buses were reserved for white passengers only. Parks was sitting in the eleventh row. When the bus filled up the driver told Rosa Parks to surrender her seat to a white man, but she repeatedly refused. Rosa Parks, the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement" was one of the most important citizens of the 20th century. Mrs. Parks was a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama when, in December of 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. The bus driver had her arrested. She was tried and convicted of violating a local ordinance. Her act sparked a citywide boycott of the White people sat at the front of the bus, and Black people had to sit at the back. Rosa Parks, left, and Martin Luther King Jr., second from left, presented this couple with an award at a 1965 Proverbs 6:16-19 There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent National Woman’s History Museum, Rosa Parks ; The Henry Ford Museum of Innovation, Rosa Parks ; The Gospel Coalition, Rosa Parks; Where was Rosa Parks seated? Ms. Parks was not technically in the front of the bus but rather seated in a middle section situated behind the White-only designated seating. Municipal buses in Montgomery each had 36 5. Rosa Parks was the first black woman to exercise civil disobedience on a Montgomery bus. Nearly nine months before Rosa Parks’s famous arrest, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested on a Montgomery bus for refusing to yield her seat to a white passenger. She refused to move, began yelling about her constitutional rights, and had to be On December 1, 1955, a tired Rosa Parks left work as a department store tailor’s assistant and planned to ride home on a city bus. She sat down between the “whites only” section in the front of the bus and the “colored” section in the back. Black riders only sat in this area if the back was filled. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of going to the back of the bus, which was designated for African Americans, she sat in the front. When the bus started to fill up with white passengers, the bus driver asked Parks to move. She refused.
Articles and news, personal stories, interviews with experts.
Photos from events, contest for the best costume, videos from master classes.