On December 1st, 1955, African-American seamstress Rosa Parks was returning home from her job at a local department store on the Cleveland Avenue bus. She was seated in the front row …show more content…
Fred Blake, asked Parks and three others to vacate their seats. The other African-American riders complied, but Parks refused. She was arrested and fined $10, plus $4 in court fees. This was not Parks’ first encounter with Blake. In 1943, she had paid her fare at the front of a bus he was driving, and then exited so she could re-enter through the back door, as required. Blake pulled away before she could re-board the bus. Nine months before Rosa Parks' arrest for refusing to give up her bus seat, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested in Montgomery for the same act. The city's black leaders prepared to protest, until it was discovered Colvin was pregnant and deemed an inappropriate symbol for their cause. Although Parks has sometimes been depicted as a woman with no history of