Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks had worked hard all day at the department store where she was employed as a
seamstress. She was very tired and her shoulders ached. So when the bus driver told Mrs Parks, a
black woman, that she must give up her seat to a white passenger, Mrs Parks did something
dangerous, Mrs Parks said no.
It was December 1, 1955, and Mrs Parks
was riding a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
Like many other cities in the South,
Montgomery had special - and painful rules for black people. Black people had to
drink from separate water fountains and eat
at separate lunch counters. When black
people rode on buses, the bus driver
sometimes made them pay at the front,
then climb out and enter again at the rear. If
the front section of the bus filled up, black
people sometimes had to give up their
seats in the back to white passengers.
But Mrs Parks refused to do that. The bus
driver swore at her. Then he left the bus
and brought back two police officers. The
police officers arrested her and took her to
the city jail. There Mrs Parks began to pray
and to think about why she was in jail.
Mrs Parks had known since was a
little girl that Montgomery's rules for
blacks were wrong. When she
married Raymond Parks, she and
her husband joined the National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) an
organization that was working to
change those rules. Mrs Parks had
worked for twelve years running the
office headquarters of the
Montgomery branch. One of the
ways rules can be changed is for
people to vote for changes. So Mrs
Parks had also joined the
Montgomery Voters' League, which
helped black people pass tests they
had to take to become voters.
But the day Mrs Parks refused to give up her seat, she wasn't thinking about the organizations she
belonged to or of starting a formal protest against the unfair rules. Mrs Parks said no to the bus
driver because she was tired. She didn't know that her refusal would start a revolution.
Within a few hours, friends had arranged for Mrs Parks to leave jail by paying $ 100 in bond money
and promising that she would show up for a trial. The next night, black leaders and some whites
met to discuss what had happened. They came op with a plan to show the city how the black
people fell. On Sunday ministers in black churches all over Montgomery told their congregations
about Rosa Parks. "Don't ride the buses on Monday,“ the ministers urged. Angry for Mrs Parks,
angry for themselves and for their children, the black people agreed to stay off the buses, Most of
the passengers who used the Montgomery City Lines were black, so on Monday the buses were
almost empty. Black people found other ways to travel to jobs and schools. Those who owned cars
gave rides to those who didn't. Those who had no rides walked.
While the black people of Montgomery were walking, Mrs Parks went to court. The judge said she
had disobeyed the rules of the city and had to pay a fine. Mrs Parks's lawyer said Mrs Parks would
not pay the fine. Instead, he would take her case to the Supreme Court so that the highest court in
the land could decide whether the rules were just.
Officials in Montgomery felt sure the fuss over the buses would end quickly. They were wrong, On
Monday night the black people of Montgomery attended a meeting. They heard a young minister
named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., urge them to continue their boycott of the buses. "We are going
to keep walking until the bus company gives us fair treatment,” said Dr. King.
And walk they did, while empty buses rolled the streets. The bus company lost money, and some
enemies of the boycott did cruel things. They threw bottles at the walkers, they bombed homes,
they made phone calls threatening black leaders. Mrs Parks received phone calls saying she was
the cause of the trouble and should be killed. But she did not give in. Neither did thousands of
other people who walked in Montgomery through the spring and summer and into the fail.
Meanwhile, Mrs Parks's lawyers had succeeded in bringing
her case to the Supreme Court. After careful deliberation, in
November the Supreme Court ruled that separating white
people and black people on city buses was against the
Constitution of the United States. Bus companies all over the
South had to change their rules. For the first time, blacks could
sit wherever they wished,
Many people rejoiced - but they knew they had more battles to
win. Black and white people still couldn't drink from the same
water fountains, sit at the same lunch counters, or attend the
same schools and colleges. Rosa Parks kept working to
achieve these goals. In 1957 Mrs Parks and her family moved
to Detroit, where she went to work for a United States Congressman. In Congress, laws could be
made to guarantee equal rights to all American citizens.
Many people, both black and white, believe in this goal, and they have struggled along with Rosa
Parks. Their struggle is called the modern civil rights movement, and Rosa Parks has been called
the mother of that movement.
From: p. 30, FOCUS ON I Have a Dream, Alinea 2002 (2.5 n.s.)