For 382 days, almost the entire African American population of Montgomery, Alabama, including leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, refused to ride on segregated buses. 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 (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was a seamstress by profession; she was also the secretary for the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. Twelve years before her history-making arrest, Parks was stopped from boarding a city bus by driver James F. Blake, who ordered her to board at the rear door and then drove off without her. The event that triggered the boycott took place in Montgomery on December 1, 1955, after seamstress Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white passenger on a city bus. Local laws dictated that African American passengers sat at the back of the bus while whites sat in front. Rosa Parks was a Black civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man ignited the American civil rights movement. Because she played a leading role in the Montgomery bus boycott, she is called the ‘mother of the civil rights movement.’ Rosa, discharged from Montgomery Fair department store, began setting up rides and garnering public support for the boycott and the NAACP. For three hundred and eighty-one days, African American citizens of Montgomery walked, carpooled, and took taxis rather than city buses. Born in February 1913, Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in 1955 led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Her A diagram of the Montgomery bus where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat was used in court to ultimately strike down segregation on the city’s buses. The Montgomery bus boycott made King a national civil rights leader and charismatic symbol of black equality. 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 rode at the front of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus on the day the Supreme Court's ban on segregation of the city's buses took effect. A year earlier, she had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus. 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. Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement, best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. 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 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. In December of 1955, Rosa Parks was on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Back then, Black people had to give their seats to White people. Rosa Parks was Black. She said no. She would not give up her seat. The driver called the police. They took Rosa Parks to jail. Photo Credit: World History Archive/Alamy Stock Photo Rosa Parks was a Black civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man ignited the American civil rights movement. Because she played a leading role in the Montgomery bus boycott, she is called the ‘mother of the civil rights movement.’ Indeed, the bus boycott was, in many ways, the precursor to the #SayHerName twitter campaigns designed to remind us that the lives of black women matter. In 1997, an interviewer asked Joe Azbell, former city editor of the Montgomery Advertiser, who was the most important person in the bus boycott. Surprisingly, he did not say Rosa Parks. There were 8 key events during the Montgomery Bus Boycott: The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was created on 1st December in response to Rosa Parks' arrest. The MIA's chairman was Martin Luther King. The boycott started on 5th December, 1955 - the day of Rosa Parks' trial. 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 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.
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