Rosa Parks Refuses to Move: Civil Rights Movement Ignites
Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery city bus on December 1, 1955, and was arrested for violating Alabama's segregation laws. Parks was not simply a tired seamstress acting spontaneously: she was secretary of the local NAACP chapter and had attended a training workshop at the Highlander Folk School. Her arrest was the planned test case that Montgomery's Black leaders had been waiting for. The 381-day bus boycott that followed was organized by a coalition led by the 26-year-old pastor Martin Luther King Jr. Roughly 40,000 Black residents walked, carpooled, and rode bicycles rather than use the buses. The boycott cost the bus company 65% of its revenue. The Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional in Browder v. Gayle on November 13, 1956. Parks became the 'mother of the civil rights movement.'
December 1, 1955
71 years ago
Key Figures & Places
Montgomery Bus Boycott
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Montgomery, Alabama
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Rosa Parks
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racial segregation
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African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)
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Civil rights movement
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Montgomery, Alabama
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Rosa Parks
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Racial segregation
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Montgomery bus boycott
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English language
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Idioma islandés
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African American
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White people
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segregation
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United States
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Barack Obama
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Democratic Party (United States)
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Hillary Clinton
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Madeleine Albright
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Condoleezza Rice
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Tehran Conference
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Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Soviet Union
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Joseph Stalin
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British
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Winston Churchill
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والتر برسي غاردنر
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Muna al-Hussein
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