Today in history: Rosa Parks Takes Action

[Callalily]

Rosa Parks Takes Action

December 1, 1955

An act of dissent 66 years ago today elevated seamstress Rosa Parks to be known as “the mother of the civil rights movement.” Per a city ordinance in Montgomery, Alabama, Black bus riders were forced to sit in the back rows of the bus and, along crowded routes, relinquish their seats to white riders. During such a trip, a white driver ordered 42-year-old Parks and others to stand. While three of Parks’ seatmates consented, she declined and was arrested. A 12-year NAACP veteran and secretary of its local branch, Parks was fined $14 total for the offense and court costs. Instead of paying, she worked with the NAACP to appeal her conviction.

After hearing about her court case, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. helped initiate the 381-day Montgomery bus boycott. Participants unable to carpool walked miles roundtrip to school and work. The long protest crippled transit system revenue, and had far-reaching effects, inspiring sympathizers nationwide to stage their own protests at segregated facilities. In late 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Alabama’s bus segregation laws, citing the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause — the basis for its prior Brown v. Board of Education decision. After the boycott ended, Parks moved to Detroit, where she spent more than two decades working for Congressman John Conyers Jr. in his mission to improve Black rights. In 1996, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.