Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks’ protest sparked a growing movement to desegregate public transportation and marked a turning point in the African American battle for civil rights.

At the end of the reconstruction period, African Americans were considered second-class citizens and Jim Crow laws and black codes prevented blacks from obtaining their rights as citizens. It wasn’t until the 1950’s-60 that blacks began to fight for equal opportunities.

One individual who was one of the first to start the civil rights movement was an African American woman from Montgomery, Alabama. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a bus after a long day of work. Rosa sat in a row of seats just behind the section of the bus that was designated for whites only. When a white man got on the bus and could not locate an empty seat, the bus driver told Rosa and the others seated by her to give up their seats for him. Rosa refused. Despite the hardship in Rosa’s refusal, she continued to fight for what she believed in. She once quoted, "Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it. I kept thinking about my mother and my grandparents, and how strong they were. I knew there was a possibility of being mistreated, but an opportunity was being given to me to do what I had asked of others." Her protest sparked a growing movement to desegregate public transportation and marked a turning point in the African American battle for civil rights.

After Rosa Parks’ arrest, African Americans wanted to carry on the civil rights movement that she herself started. Blacks through out the entire town of Montgomery came together at a meeting at which they decided to boycott the use of buses as transportation. As a result, the bus company lost a lot of their business because blacks made up the majority of those who used buses. Their boycott lasted an entire year until finally the courts ruled that segregation in public transportation was illegal.

Then, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came about as a civil rights movement leader, during their first meeting in Montgomery. He along with other African-American community leaders held another meeting to organize upcoming actions. They named their organization, the Montgomery Improvement Association and Dr. King was elected as its president. Soon after, King urged African Americans to use nonviolent ways to achieve their goals. In 1960, a group of black