Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

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            Rosa Louise McCauley was born on February 4^th, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her parents, James and Leona, sent her to a private school called the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls at age eleven. She later attended Alabama State College for Negros; she then married Raymond Parks, a barber, in 1932. Rosa Parks worked as a seamstress in a department store over the next twenty-three years, and her husband and she were active participants in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Hahn). She became the secretary of the local Montgomery NAACP and later became the Youth Council advisor.

            Some Southern cities and cities outside of the South no longer enforced segregated seating on public transportation, but Montgomery, Alabama did. Bus seats in the front row were for whites, the back row of the bus was for blacks, and if a white passenger came on and no seats were available, a black had to give up his or her seat (McGuire). On December 1^st, 1955, Rosa Parks picked a seat near the front of the bus on her way home from work (Hahn). As Rosa got on the bus, she recognized the driver as James Blake, who followed a common practice in Montgomery. Blake forced black passengers to pay the fares, then get off the bus, then get back on. Sometimes he would leave black passengers after they had paid and before they could get back on the bus. Parks had had other incidences with Blake; for instance,  in 1943 when she was thrown off the bus for sitting in the front (Simkin). This time, as the bus was getting crowded, the bus driver asked Parks and three other African Americans to move to the back so a white man could sit in the front (Hahn). The others obliged, but Rosa Parks refused politely, but the driver called the police anyway (McGuire). She was arrested, fined fourteen dollars, and held in a cell (Simkin). Two civil rights activists and the president of the state NAACP, E.D Dixon, bailed her out the same day (McGuire). This event was not unexpected, but it was what civil rights activists had been waiting for to get them into action (Hahn). These activists had a plan that would be one of the largest movements against segregation in the country (McGuire).

            Four days after Rosa Parks’ arrest, the Montgomery Improvement Association, or MIA, was founded and a young pastor, Martin Luther King Jr., was named the presidentt. The MIA organized the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott, where passengers refused to ride buses until they were integrated. MIA leaders printed handbills, organized carpools and throughout the community spread the word of protest. The boycott started on December 5^th, 1955 and lasted 382 days to December 21^st, 1956 (Hahn). Over 17,000 blacks boycotted the Montgomery buses (Simkin), along with several whites to support them, which severely damaged the bus company’s business. About 70% of the buses passengers were comprised of African Americans, so the Montgomery bus company was trying to find solutions to get business again. The bus company offered black drivers to use routes frequented by blacks, as well as white bus drivers refraining from rude remarks; but the MIA refused until its total demands were met (Hahn), which was complete integration on the buses (McGuire). The African-American community endured violence from police officers and other whites, but the blacks’ protests against bus segregation still continued (Simkin). Several blacks lost their jobs, including Rosa Parks and her husband, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s house was bombed (McGuire) in reply to a “get tough” response led by White Citizen’s Council in Montgomery (Hahn).

            On November 13^th, 1956 the Supreme Court ordered bus segregation unconstitutional, and on December 21^st, Montgomery, Alabama complied with the new law. The first of many battles in the civil rights movement had been fought and won by integrationists. Rosa Parks came to be known as the mother of the civil rights movement for her courage and nonviolent protest (McGuire).