December 1, 1955

On December 1, 1955, African-American Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give her bus seat to a white passenger. One year later, on December 20, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregated bus seating illegal. During that year, the forty-two year Montgomery seamstress lead a peaceful bus boycott that became a model for other civil rights protests.

Time 100: Rosa Parks
Time Magazine names Rosa Parks as one of the “Heroes and Icons” of the twentieth century.
The story told here about her historic Montgomery bus ride reveals a bit of behind-the-scenes
politics that is rarely told. Parks was not the first Montgomery black to be arrested for refusing to
cede a bus seat to a white rider; she was the third. It was Parks’ beyond-reproach standing in the
community (she was married and employed) and her political savvy (she was involved with the
local N.A.A.C.P.) that made her case the perfect one to test the legality of Montgomery’s bus
segregation.

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[tags]rosa parks,civil rights,segregation,montgomery,n.a.a.c.p.,supreme court[/tags]