Who is Rosa Parks? The Year is 1955 One day in December 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks boarded a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was tired from a busy day at work. She was tired of sitting in the back of the bus. But mostly, she was tired of the wrongness of things. Why should she have to give up her seat to a white person, just because she was colored? It didn't make any sense. It had never made any sense. That day, when the bus driver told her to move to allow a white bus-rider to be seated, Mrs. Parks refused. She did not argue. She simply refused to get up and move. She could have been hurt. Someone could have shoved her or hit her. No one did. The bus driver called the police. The police took Mrs. Parks away to jail. It was not the first time someone had refused to move. But it was the first time that it was someone many people knew. Mrs. Parks had once worked as the secretary to the president of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.) That was an important job. She knew a lot of people, and they knew her. They knew she was tiny and soft-spoken and gentle and kind. When Martin Luther King, Jr. heard that Mrs. Parks had been arrested, he called a meeting at his church. A huge crowd gathered to hear what he had to say. People wanted things to change, but they did not want to make waves. They were afraid. People shrugged their shoulders and said there was nothing they could do. It was just the way things were. Dr. King believed there was something they could do. They could boycott. They could refuse to ride the buses. That would cost the city a lot of money. The city and bus officials would not like that. On the morning of December 5th, not everyone, but many people of color refused to ride the bus. They walked. They rode mules. Those few people with cars acted as a shuttle service, taking others to work and wherever they needed to go. It took a long time for the boycott to work. It took 381 days. On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that Alabama's laws requiring segregation on buses - requiring persons of color to ride in the back of the bus, and to give up their seat in the colored section to a white person if the bus was crowded - were illegal. About a month later, federal orders were given to the city and bus company officials that gave them a choice - they could obey the Supreme Court's ruling or they could go to jail themselves! Many white people were glad. They wanted things to change. But some white people were angry. During the year-long boycott, they fought back with acts of terrorism. They threw a bomb at Dr. King's house. His wife and baby daughter were inside. His family did escape, but it was a terrifying thing. Every time something terrifying happened, even when they bombed his home, knowing his wife and daughter were inside, Dr. King met anger with love. "We must learn to meet hate with love," he would say. "We must learn to meet hate with love." Finally, just over a year after the courageous Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, a very good thing happened. A few days before Christmas, Dr. King and his good friend Reverend Smiley, a white minister, sat together on the front seat of a city bus. The battle for equal rights under the law was not won. There were many battles ahead before the job would be done. But that was a most special morning. Was it planned? Even though she knew she could be attacked and hurt, did Rosa Parks say: "I'll do it. I'll refuse to give up my seat. If I'm arrested, I think people will be shocked. They know I wouldn't hurt a fly. After I'm arrested, you can call a meeting and organize your boycott." Or, did the very courageous Rosa Parks simply decide on the spur of the moment that enough was enough? Find out from Rosa Parks herself by clicking on the links below. Rosa Parks: How I fought for Civil Rights (Scholastic, all online) Rosa Parks - An Interview Rosa Parks (Academy of Achievement) Civil Rights Movement  Rosa Parks - Read, Think, Write MS State Ed - Rosa Parks (background)   This special section index page:  Civil Rights Movement - Segregation  All Rights Reserved Counter start date January 2006  Rosa Parks picture - Archives Have a great year!