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 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 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. 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. Taylor Shortly after 5 p.m., on a cool Alabama evening 60 years ago Tuesday, a 42-year-old woman clocked out from her job as a seamstress at the Montgomery Fair Department Store. Rosa Parks walked 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 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 On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks took her famous stand sitting down. Returning home after a long day of work at a department store, Parks was seated in the middle section of a Montgomery bus; under the practices of Jim Crow racial segregation, such buses had a movable sign that could designate certain sections “white” and others “colored Civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, sparking the transformational Montgomery Bus Boycott. The NAACP planned to then use its secretary, Rosa Parks, who was seen as more respectable and an "inherently impressive person," for the sitting-on-the-bus protest they'd use to call for the boycott. There is a video on the subject if you're interested, although if anyone has a more serious source I'd love to see it. Due in part to history books and that Drunk History episode, many folks think her bus protest was planned, that she was sitting in the white section, and that she was “picked” to protest because of her nice old lady demeanor. This is one of those things that gets mixed up a bit. Rosa Parks didn’t set out that day to protest the segregated bussing. She was an activist, and she was also selected as the poster child for that particular cause over other possible candidates because civil rights activists believed she presented a better picture to the public than, for example, a young unwed pregnant woman in a similar A statue of civil rights activist Rosa Parks is unveiled at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama on Feb. 14, 2024. The statue of Parks is one of three that will honor civil rights icons. Statues of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis are also planned. (Ralph Chapoco/Alabama Reflector) 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. There, Parks made a new life for herself, working as a secretary and receptionist in U.S. Representative John Conyer’s congressional office. She also served on the board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In 1987, with longtime friend Elaine Eason Steele, Parks founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. TIL Rosa Parks didn't actually refuse to sit in the back of the bus. She was sitting in the back of the bus but refused to give up her seat in the "colored section" to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled. Rosa Parks and her husband standing in front of a car. (Library of Congress) Was Rosa Parks' Protest Planned? Parks, who was sitting between the "colored only" and "white only" sections, Yep, that's a full nine months before Rosa Parks was arrested for the same thing. Dec. 1, 1955: NAACP member Rosa Parks is arrested for resisting bus segregation, again in Montgomery. In response, the Montgomery black community launches the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The most famous female civil rights activist was almost named Claudette Colvin, and not Rosa Parks. A few months before Parks was arrested, a 15-year-old Colvin boarded a Montgomery bus with three
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