The Mother of the Freedom Movement: The Montgomery Bus Boycott

790 Words2 Pages

The Mother of the Freedom Movement
In 1955, an African-American seamstress helped cause the civil rights movement in the United States, and her name was Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks was an African-American civil rights activist. Many know her by “the first lady of civil rights” or “the mother of the freedom movement.” Rosa Parks once said, “I’d see the bus pass everyday, but to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and a white world.” (The Story Behind The Bus) After she said this, she knew she had to take a stand against segregation and do everything in her power to change it.
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was born on February 4th, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama to her parents James McCauley and Leona Edwards. Eventually in 1915, Rosa’s parents divorced and her mother took her and her brother to live in Pine Level. In Pine Level, Rosa lived with her grandparents most of the time. Rosa was homeschooled until she was eleven years old, and she then attended a public school called Industrial School for Girls. She took vocational and academic courses, and she also started laboratory school for a secondary education, but unfortunately she never got to finish because she was forced to drop out to take care of her ill grandmother. Growing up, Rosa was influenced by the Jim Crow Laws, these laws segregated white people from black people in almost everything they did, including public restrooms, drinking fountains, education and transportation. Transportation for the blacks was very different than the whites, the whites were allowed to ride the bus to take them to their schools while the blacks were required to walk to their schools. Public t...

... middle of paper ...

...t neither of them would take a stand for what they believed in because they thought no one would agree or try to help them change these laws.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956. This boycott was when African Americans refused to ride any city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest against segregated seating. 40,000 people were already organized in this boycott only two days after Parks’ arrest. Many whites tried to stop the boycott by trying to separate the black community, and they also tried to break down the private taxi system that allowed the blacks to have a source of transportation. More than 66 percent of people that rode these buses were blacks, causing tons of buses to start suffering economically. The Montgomery Boycott changed a lot, but this biggest effect it had was to stop segregation towards blacks.

Show More
Related

  • how important were the actions of Roas Parks?

    965 Words  | 2 Pages

    The black people of Montgomery decided that the best way to show their anger at what had happened and how they were being treated would be by boycott, not use, the local bus service. One the first day of the boycott the buses were almost empty. The black community worked together and arranged another forms of transport such as car pool, or waling. Black taxi companies only charged back passengers the price of the bus fair and some white people who could do without their servants even when to pick them up form their homes. During the boycott the bus company lost 65% of their earnings. This showed people who powerful non-violent protest could be, by challenging black segregation laws without committing a crime. It also showed the black people how powerful they could be if they worked together.

    Read More

  • Rosa Parks Significance

    570 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rosa Parks was a African American woman who sat in the front of the bus after a long hard day at work. As she traveled on the bus back home, a Caucasian male approached and asked her to get up from her seat to go to the back of the bus because he wanted to sit there. Instead of avoiding the trouble and just going to the back of the bus, she decided to stay where she was . Due to the time period, because of her not giving her seat up to the gentlemen, she was arrested and charged with civil disobedience. After her arrest was made a boycott would ensue

    Read More

  • How Did Emmett Till Dehumanized

    702 Words  | 2 Pages

    On December 1, 1955, Parks was taking the bus home from work. Before she reached her destination, she silently set off a revolution when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. As a black violating the laws of racial segregation, she was arrested. Her arrest inspired blacks in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to organize a bus boycott to protest the discrimination they had endured for decades. After filing her notice of appeal, a panel of judges in the District Court ruled that racial segregation of public buses was unconstitutional. It was through her silent act of defiance that people began to protest racial discrimination, and where she earned the name “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement” (Bredhoff et

    Read More

  • The Hero's Journey: Rosa Parks

    764 Words  | 2 Pages

    Parks would be tried in municipal court the WPC started to put out flyers calling a bus boycott,this was the Slaying of the Dragon News of the boycott started to get around and people began to pronounce it in church and also became the headings of a lot of newspapers. Approximately 40,000 African Americans bus riders boycotted Montgomery bus system. Martin Luther King Jr. head of the Montgomery Improvement Association decided to continue the boycott until the city meets its demands. On June 5, 1956 a Montgomery Federal Court ruled the the law requiring racially segregated seating on buses violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S Constitution. December 21, 1956 Montgomery buses were integrated and the bus boycott ended, which lasted 381

    Read More

  • Civil Rights Timeline: Jan. 15, 1929 - Dec. 21, 1956

    1444 Words  | 3 Pages

    Parks, the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56 was actually a collective response to decades of intimidation, harassment and discrimination of Alabama's African American population. By 1955, judicial decisions were still the principal means of struggle for civil rights, even though picketing, marches and boycotts sometimes punctuated the litigation. The boycott, which lasted for more than a year, was almost 100 percent effective.

    Read More

  • Rosa Parks: Life and Times

    1974 Words  | 4 Pages

    Life - Rosa Parks was born only a month before world war one started in Europe on February 4, 1913. Parks mother worked as a school teacher in Tuskegee, Alabama. James McCauley, Rosa's dad was a carpenter. They lived in Tuskegee and owned farmland of their own. After Sylvester was born, Rosa's little brother, her father left them and went off to live in another town. He had been cheated out of his farmland by a white man and couldn't support the family any longer. Rosa her mother and her brother then moved to live with her grandparents on a farm in Pinelevel, which lay between Tuskegee and Montgomery, Alabama. It was a small plot of land, but it kept them all fed. From this point on Rosa was mainly brought up by her Grandparents with the assistance of her mother. Rosa gave up school when she came close to graduating, around the same time Rosa got married. Raymond Parks married Rosa McCauley December 18, 1932. He was a barber from Wedowee County, Alabama. He had little formal education but a thirst for knowledge. Her husband, Raymond Parks, encouraged her to finish her courses. In 1934 she received her diploma from Alabama State College. She was happy that she completed her education but had little hope of getting a better job. When Rosa had finished school she was lucky enough to get a job as a seamstress in a local sewing factory. Prior to the bus incident Rosa was still fighting. She had run-ins with bus drivers and was evicted from buses. Parks recalls the humiliation: "I didn't want to pay my fare and then go around the back door, because many times, even if you did that, you might not get on the bus at all. They'd probably shut the door, drive off, and leave you standing there."

    Read More

  • How Did The Montgomery Bus Boycott Impact The Civil Rights Movement

    1290 Words  | 3 Pages

    On December 5, 1955, thousands of African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama walked, carpooled, or hitchhiked to work in an act of rebellion against segregation on buses. This bus boycott was not the first of its kind – black citizens of Baton-Rouge, Louisiana had implemented the same two years prior – but the bus boycott in Montgomery was a critical battle of the Civil Rights Movement. Though the original intent of the boycott was to economically cripple the bus system until local politicians agreed to integrate the city’s buses, the Montgomery Bus Boycott impacted the fabric of society in a much deeper way. Instead of only changing the symptoms of a much larger problem, this yearlong protest was the first step in transforming the way all Americans

    Read More

  • Montgomery Bus Boycott Research Paper

    818 Words  | 2 Pages

    Culturally, the Montgomery Bus Boycott set the mood of the entire Civil Rights Movement. The public buses in Montgomery, Alabama at the time were segregated, the whites sat at the front and the blacks sat at the back. During this time, the white community saw themselves as superior to the other races. However, the African-American community have started to stand up for themselves. Although she was not the first one to do so, Rosa Parks was the one to spark the boycott. She refused to give her seat up to a white passenger which resulted in her arrest. For Parks, “it is unlikely that she fully realized the forces she had set into motion and the controversy that would soon swirl around her” says the official website of the Montgomery Bus

    Read More

  • Bus Boycott

    2007 Words  | 5 Pages

    Enraged by Mrs. Parks arrest the black community of Montgomery united together and organized a boycott of the bus system until the city buses were integrated. The black men and women stayed of the buses until December 20, 1956, almost thirteen months after the boycott their goal was reached. The Montgomery Bus Boycott can be considered a major turning point in the Civil Rights Movement because it made Martin Luther King Jr. public leader in the movement, starting point for non-violent protest as an effective tool in the fight for civil rights, showed that African-Americans united for a cause could stand up to segregation.

    Read More

  • The Impact Of The Niagara Movement

    2229 Words  | 5 Pages

    Rosa Parks was a member of the NAACP, lived in Montgomery Alabama, and rode the public bus system. In the south, during this time the buses were segregated which meant that black people had to ride in the back of the bus behind a painted line. White people entered the front of the bus and were compelled to sit in front of the painted line. Most buses at the time had more room for white riders who used the service less than the black ridership. Yet, they could not cross the line even if the seats in the front were empty (Brown-Rose, 2008). Rosa Parks made a bold statement when she sat in the “white section” of a Montgomery bus. She was asked to surrender her seat to a white man, but she did not move and was soon arrested. Her brave action started the Montgomery bus Boycott, with the help of the NAACP, none other than Dr. Martin Luther King’s leadership as part of the Montgomery Improvement Association. As its President, he was able spread the word quickly which brought national attention to the small town of Montgomery’s bus Boycott. The boycott was televised and brought so much attention that the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public transportation was unconstitutional; a success spurring a more

    Read More

  • Rosa Parks

    700 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rosa Parks was an African-American women who was tired of being treated differently just because of her skin color. She was a very kind woman who fought against all the laws and segregation. Rosa was born in 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama and died in 2005 in Detroit, Michigan (RM, plc. "Rosa (Louise McCauley) Parks"4). She did something that broke the law at the time but it changed this place and its keeps being an impact to everyone now in present days (Armentrout, DavidArmentrout, Patricia. "ALABAMA: Rosa Parks."1 ). She was on a Boycott bus on December 1, 1955 when the bus filled up and the African-Americans were supposed to give their seat up to the Americans but Rosa didn’t (Badertscher 1). She was 42 at this time so she knew what she was doing and she decided to do it anyways ("Rosa Parks"1). When she refused to give her seat up they ended up taking her to jail because she was breaking a law at the moment (Badertscher 7). She went to jail for something unfair, she was tired of getting no respect and treated like if she nobody or nothing in this world.

    Read More

  • Montgomery Bus Boycott Significance

    2120 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a massively critical part of the Civil Rights Movement. On 1 December 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white person in Montgomery, Alabama. Her prosecution in turn sparked a 381 day-long boycott with over 50,000 African-American’s partaking in this protest. Not only was the sheer number of people involved in the boycott successful in making it especially significant in the short term; it acted as a catalyst for the movement, influencing other non-violent protests and in forcing Martin Luther King to the forefront of the movement. The non-violence that was encouraged by King also proved to be extremely effective in impacting the whole of Montgomery and elsewhere.

    Read More

  • Montomery Bus Boycott And Selma To Montgomery March

    544 Words  | 2 Pages

    First and foremost, the Montgomery Bus Boycott is when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white American on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955. Also the same day as December 1 1955 there was a protest against segregation on public transport. In the 1900 Alabama passed a city ordinance for the segregation passengers. The bus was segregated to divide and equal up the blacks and the white passengers. The buses use a sign that said “white people forward and colored rear.” The black people always sit at the back of the bus and never directly opposite a white person, and the white people sit in the front of the bus. On the Montgomery bus there were always the first four rows of seats reserved for white people but if you needed more seating they could move the sign back where the white people would have room to sit (“ Montgomery Bus Boycott ”) .

    Read More

  • The Montgomery Bus Boycott: The Black Power Movement

    619 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Montgomery Bus Boycott was significant because it was regarded as the earliest mass protest on

    Read More

  • Montgomery Bus Boycotts: Role of Women in the Civil Rights Movement

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    Blacks walked miles to work, organized carpools, and despite efforts from the police to discourage this new spark of independence, the boycotts continued for more than a year until in November 1956 the Supreme Court ruled that the Montgomery bus company must desegregate it's busses. Were it not for the leadership of Rosa Parks and Jo Ann Robinson, and the support the black community through church congregations, these events may have not happened for many years to come.

    Read More

More about The Mother of the Freedom Movement: The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Open Document