Nine months before Rosa Parks' arrest for refusing to give up her bus seat, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested in Montgomery for the same act. The city's Black leaders prepared to Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. 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. The National City Lines bus, No. 2857, on which Rosa Parks rode before she was arrested (a GM "old-look" transit bus, serial number 1132), is now on exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum. On the night of Parks' arrest, the Women's Political Council , led by Jo Ann Robinson , printed and circulated a flyer throughout Montgomery's black community that 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. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for disorderly conduct for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. Civil Rights leader E. D. Nixon bailed her out of jail, joined by white friends Clifford Durr, an attorney, and his wife, Virginia. 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. Earlier that summer, she attended a workshop on implementing integration at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee. Triggered by the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger, the 13-month protest campaign reshaped the struggle for racial equality and introduced the world to a young minister named Martin Luther King Jr. But the boycott did not emerge out of nowhere. Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. To coincide with her trial on December 5, 1955, the Women’s Political Council initiated a one-day citywide bus boycott. On the evening of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African American seamstress and civil rights activist living in Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested for refusing to obey a bus driver who had ordered her and three other African American passengers to vacate their seats to make room for a white passenger who had just boarded. On 1 December 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give her bus seat to a white passenger. Following her arrest, a boycott of the city's bus system was Montgomery bus boycott, mass protest against the bus system of Montgomery, Alabama, by civil rights activists and their supporters that led to a 1956 U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring that Montgomery’s segregation laws on buses were unconstitutional. The boycott was led by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. The boycott was sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks, an African American woman who refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger on December 1, 1955. Also Read: Little Rock Nine Facts Parks’ act of defiance was not the first of its kind, but it gained widespread attention and became a symbol of resistance to racial segregation. Rosa Parks launched the Montgomery bus boycott when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. The boycott proved to be one of the pivotal moments of the emerging civil rights movement. For 13 months, starting in December 1955, the black citizens of Montgomery protested nonviolently with the goal of desegregating the city’s public buses. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks made a stand by not giving up her seat to a white person on a bus in Montgomery. This led to her arrest and sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This boycott was a key moment in the fight for civil rights in America. African Americans in Montgomery didn't ride 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. 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 Introduction. 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. Following her pivotal role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rosa Parks faced significant challenges. Despite becoming an emblematic figure of the Civil Rights Movement, Parks lost her job at the department store and her husband, Raymond, was also dismissed from his position due to the backlash stemming from her protest. The Montgomery Bus Boycott speech reprinted below is one of the first major addresses of Dr. Martin Luther King. Dr. King spoke to nearly 5,000 people at the Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery on December 5, 1955, just four days after Mrs. Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery city bus.
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