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 December 5, 1955 to December 20, 1956. 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. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African-American seamstress, refused to give up her seat to a white man while riding on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama.. For doing this, Parks was arrested and fined for breaking the laws of segregati 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 “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. Parks—a middle-class, well-respected civil rights activist—was the ideal candidate. Just a few days after Parks’s arrest, activists announced plans for the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott, which officially began December 5, 1955, did not support just Parks but countless other African Americans who had been arrested for the same reason. 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. The black community of Montgomery had held firm in their resolve. The Montgomery bus boycott triggered a firestorm in the South. Across the region, blacks resisted "moving to the back of the bus." Similar actions flared up in other cities. The boycott put Martin Luther King Jr. in the national spotlight. The Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956 was a defining moment in the American Civil Rights Movement. 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. The Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956 was a defining moment in the American Civil Rights Movement. 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. “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. Following Rosa Parks’ arrest, the WPC began circulating flyers calling for a boycott of the city buses on 5 December, the day Parks would be tried in municipal court. The group’s president, Jo Ann Robinson, was crucial in mobilising the African American community to support the boycott. Rosa Parks occupies an iconic status in the civil rights movement after she refused to vacate a seat on a bus in favor of a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1955, Parks rejected a bus driver's order to leave a row of four seats in the "colored" section once the white section had filled up and move to the back of the bus. 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. 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. Impacts of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The Montgomery bus boycott was a significant success of the civil rights movement. Together with the Brown vs Topeka ruling, it helped to end segregation in another area of society. It made civil rights activists more determined to gain equality. The boycott made Martin Luther King a famous civil rights 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 Rosa Parks, the woman whose arrest sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, would later cite that it was Till that inspired her actions. The impact of the Montgomery Bus Boycott is longstanding. 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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