Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus on December 1, 1955. This led to her being arrested and also led to the Motogemery Bus Boycott to begin, eventually having segregation on public transit deemed unconstitutional. Born on February 4th, 1913, Parks grew up in Pine Level, Alabama, with her mother, Leona McCauley, and grandparents, Rose and Sylvester Edwards. Both of Parks’ grandparents were former slaves and stood up against racial injustice against black people. Rosa went to segregated schools throughout her education, moved on to secondary school, and eventually got her high school diploma in 1933, which was quite uncommon at the time when “eight out of every 10 black children of high school age in southern states weren’t even enrolled in secondary schools,…show more content… On December 1st, 1955, Parks was coming home from her work as a seamstress, where she then sat in one of the first rows of the bus designated for “coloured” passengers. As the bus was on its way to Rosa’s destination, bus driver James F. Blake stopped the bus and moved the sign separating the segregated seats back a row, as he noticed that many white passengers were standing in the aisle of the bus. Blake asked Parks, as well as three other black passengers, to give up their seats, and while the three other passengers complied, Rosa did not and stated, “I don’t think I should have to stand up” (McEvoy). Because of this, Rosa was arrested and charged with violating Chapter 6, Section 11 of the Montgomery City Code. Parks’ upstanding behaviour at a time where segregation was heavily in place and extremely enforced led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, where Black Americans refused to ride the city’s buses to work and instead rode in black-owned cabs, carpooled, and even walked—some walking over 20
