Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The Montgomery Bus Boycott


Rosa Parks was born in 1913. She was an activist for African American civil rights who worked with the NAACP and many individual civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr. However, she was most famous for starting the Montgomery Bus Boycott. On December 1, 1955, Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white person. This type of protest had been done before, but the other protests had not caused boycotts.

Technically, Parks had not even broken any laws. The buses were segregated and drivers were allowed to assign seats to keep them that way, but they could not make people move or stand if the bus got full. However, because racism was so prevalent, it had become common practice for bus drivers to make black people give up their seats if there were white people who would have to stand if they didn't. Parks was arrested even though she had not broken any laws by refusing to give up her seat.

E.D. Nixon, a civil rights activist, and Clifford Durr, the lawyer who would later represent Parks, bailed her out of jail the next day. Nixon then contacted a member of the Women's Political Council (WPC), which then became the first organization to officially support the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was formed to lead the boycott. Martin Luther King, Jr was chosen as the organization's leader. This boycott raised awareness of the injustices being done to African Americans and paved the way for many other civil rights movements.

~By Erin M

1 comment:

  1. I like how you split it into paragraphs so it was easy to read. It was interesting how Rosa parks technically didnt break any laws.

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