Rosa Parks' Arrest Sparks Boycott
https://highered.nbclearn.com/portal/site/HigherEd/browse/?cuecard=1845
General Information
Source:
Creator:
NBC News
Lester Holt
Resource Type:
Copyright:
Event Date:
Air/Publish Date:
12/01/1955
10/01/2004
Copyright Date:
Clip Length
Video News Report
NBCUniversal Media,
LLC.
2004
00:01:52
Description
NBC's Lester Holt revisits the story of Rosa Parks who was prepared to go to jail and fight for her rights,
when she was denied a seat on the bus. Within days of her arrest Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called on
black citizens to boycott public busses until demands for equal treatment were met.
Keywords
Rosa Parks, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., NAACP, Segregation, Protest, Fred
Gray, Civil Rights, Race, Blacks, African Americans, Charles J. Ogletree, Jr.
Citation
MLA
"Rosa Parks' Arrest Sparks Boycott." Lester Holt, correspondent. NBC News. NBCUniversal Media. 1
© 2008-2015 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Page 1 of 2
Oct. 2004. NBC Learn. Web. 21 November 2015
APA
Holt, L. (Reporter). 2004, October 1. Rosa Parks' Arrest Sparks Boycott. [Television series episode].
NBC News. Retrieved from https://highered.nbclearn.com/portal/site/HigherEd/browse/?cuecard=1845
CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE
"Rosa Parks' Arrest Sparks Boycott" NBC News, New York, NY: NBC Universal, 10/01/2004. Accessed
Sat Nov 21 2015 from NBC Learn:
https://highered.nbclearn.com/portal/site/HigherEd/browse/?cuecard=1845
Transcript
Rosa Parks' Arrest Sparks Boycott
LESTER HOLT: On December 1st, 1955, less than one year after the Brown decision, an African
American seamstress named Rosa Parks was arrested after she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a
white passenger.
Fred Gray was her lawyer at the time.
Civil Rights Attorney FRED GRAY: She came and sat in one of the seats behind the first set of seats. And
of course there were three other African Americans sitting in seats in the same area. And when they got to
the first stop the bus driver asked for those seats. The other three persons got up and she did not.
Rosa Parks in some respects was the ideal person to become the symbol of the civil rights movement. She
was prepared to go to jail and fight for her rights.
HOLT: Within days of her arrest Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—a little known, 26-year-old pastor, who’d
been in Montgomery less than a year—stood at the pulpit of a Dexter Avenue Baptist church, and there he
called on black citizens to boycott public busses until demands for equal treatment were met.
Harvard Law School, CHARLES J. OGLETREE, Jr.: This small-time preacher, in this small community
in Montgomery, Alabama—all of a sudden became a national figure. And people began to see something
that was never believed before.
Its one thing to quietly protest issues of racial discrimination, it’s another to do it very publicly. And
Martin Luther King had people walking to work.
HOLT: Rosa Parks’ defiance, and Martin Luther King’s leadership brought about something
unprecedented—a mass protest from the black citizens of Montgomery.
GRAY: And while we didn’t know what it was gonna develop into; we knew when the people stayed off
of the busses on December 5th, that Montgomery would never be the same.
© 2008-2015 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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