Rosa Parks

Jesus Guillen

ROSA PARKS
Even before the famous bus incident Rosa Parks protested segregation through everyday acts. She refused to drink from drinking fountains labeled “colored only”. Instead of using the segregated elevators she climbed the stairs instead. A workshop designed to promote integration by giving students the experience of interracial living influenced her daily life tremendously.
Rosa Parks was a true hero who fought for her beliefs and did not give up easily. She was a brave NAACP officer who on December 1,1955, displayed her bravery by taking a seat in the front row of the colored section of a Montgomery bus that she had every right entitled to. Rosa Parks was tired of giving up to the whites and wanted change, a true revolutionary. She was ordered along with three fellow African-American passengers to empty the row so that a white man could sit down without having to sit next to any African-Americans. Whites often treated blacks harshly which was expected to change after the Supreme Court Brown decision. However as this incident proved, the whites were not going to change their views of the blacks quickly. The bus driver then threatened to call the police, but Rosa would not budge.
The news of her arrest traveled as quickly as wildfire, catalyzing the anger inside many fellow African-Americans. Her arrest led for Jo Ann Robinson and NAACP leader E.D. Nixon to organize a bus boycott. In order to organize the boycott people from the African-American Community formed the Montgomery Improvement Association. The leader for the association became none other than the great Martin Luther King Jr. Without Rosa Park’s actions African-Americans may not have received their rights until much later and the great Martin Luther King Jr. may never had been as great as he became.