Discrimination

Rosa Parks, through protest and support from the public, has become known as the woman who changed segregation laws forever. Rosa Parks, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama letting a white man take her seat, she was found guilty of the crime of disorderly conduct with a fined of fourteen dollars. She was arrested for violating a law that required all blacks to sit in separate rows on the buses. She refused to give up her seat in the middle of the row when a white person wanted to sit in her row. Although she wasn’t the first African American to be arrested for this so called "crime" but once she was still arrested, Martin Luther King Jr. had helped her. He and other African American community leaders had organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Just four days later on December 5, 1955 the Montgomery Bus Boycott began and lasted for 382 days. Many blacks walked, rode bicycles, drove or got a ride around the city rather than take the bus. As the boycott continued the whites fought back with terrorism and harassment. People who tried to help blacks were arrested just by giving them a ride. Many lost their jobs, and Rosa Parks was harassed and threatened. Some helped the blacks by giving them rides; others attacked the blacks. After twelve months a court ordered the desegregation of the cities buses. Then the Supreme Court stated that the bus segregation was invalid to the constitution. Rosa Parks did not stop with just the Montgomery bus incident. After she lost her job, her husband and her moved to Detroit because of the boycott. She became a leader and member of many movements and groups. She was active in many black civil rights movements, including the Montgomery Voters League and the NAACP. Mrs. Rosa Parks has met many leaders and has traveled the world receiving honors and awards for her efforts toward racial harmony.