Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Rosa Parks and Her Struggle


On December 1st, 1955, four African American's were asked to move to the specified "colored" section, so that a white man could sit without having to sit next to any African Americans.  Rosa Parks, a seamstress and a NAACP officer, was on of those passengers.  Although, when asked to move, unlike the other passengers, she refused.  And due to this simple act of rebellion, she was arrested.  
NAACP leader, E. D. Nixon,  and Jo Ann Robinson decided to boycott the busses.  Together the African American community formed the Montgomery Improvement association to pursue the boycott. They elected Martin Luther Kind Jr. as the leader of their group.  
On December 5th, 1955, King made a declaration to a crowd ranging from 5000-15000 people. Because of this empowering speech, African Americans filed a lawsuit and refused to ride the busses in Montgomery for 381 days. Other than the African American community, there were many supporters of the boycott.  This included sympathetic white southerners, Montgomery's Jewish community, and Union Auto Workers.  In 1956, the supreme court outlawed bus segregation.  
One woman's determination to change the rules of society, the beginnings of a greater struggle for equality began.   

~Sneha and Alice

1 comment:

  1. I am surprised at the influence of Rosa Park's incident, which led to the mass boycott of buses. But the posting have some spelling and grammatical errors.

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