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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

ROSA PARKS



On December 1, 1955, 55 years ago today, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama.  She refused to give up her seat on a public bus when asked to do so by the bus driver.


This was in violation of the city's segregation laws.  Mrs. Parks, a seamstress, was on her way to work but she also was a member of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP.  

I was a participant in the "Tennessee Civil Rights Workshop for Teachers" a few years ago.   


We visited the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis where we learned that Mrs. Park's action was not the first of its kind in the city & that she had training in non-violent protest.  


She was "prepared" to do what she did but it was she who would decide when to do it.



Mrs. Park's arrest led directly to the Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 


The boycott, lasting 381 days, cost the bus company a great deal of money as most of their bus riders were black.  


The boycott came to an end when the Supreme Court ruled segregation laws on public transportation in Montgomery were unconstitutional. 


Segregation in public transportation did not come to an end nationally until passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  


This act was proposed by JFK but did not have enough support in Congress until after his death.


Rosa Parks, the "First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement" died in 2005 at the age of 92.


Please check out my JFK website at www.freewebs.com/jrwhite21/