Rosa Parks, Mother of Freedom
On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old department store worker in Montgomery, Alabama, was tired. She could not wait to get home. As she did almost every day, Parks got on a bus that would take her back to her family. But this was no ordinary day.
At that time, laws in many Southern states said that African American bus riders had to sit in the back of the bus. They also had to give up their seats to a white person when there were no empty seats. Parks would have none of that on this afternoon. She had had enough.
Unfair Treatment
Parks was tired of the unfair treatment African Americans faced. In the South, where segregation, or the separation of blacks and whites, was the law, African Americans were not permitted to use many services used by other Americans. African Americans had to use separate water fountains. They had to go to separate schools. They had to eat in separate restaurants.
So, when a white man asked Parks to give up her seat that December day, she refused. The police arrested her. Parks was later fined $10, plus $4 in court costs.
Mother of the Civil Rights Movement
That is not the end of the story. By refusing to give up her bus seat, Parks become the mother of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Her actions started a 381-day boycott of Montgomery's bus system. A boycott is a protest in which people refuse to do business with a company or person. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., led the Montgomery Bus Boycott. African Americans living in Montgomery refused to ride the buses for over a year.
Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in November 1956 that segregation on buses and in other public transportation went against the United States Constitution. Soon, the court system would overturn laws that separated blacks and whites in public places, such as theaters and businesses.
Honoring a Hero
The bus boycott had been a success, but Parks and her husband lost their jobs. In 1957, they moved to Detroit with Parks' mother, Leona McCauley. Until 1987, Parks worked for Congressman John Conyers, one of Michigan's Representatives to the U.S. Congress. Although Parks passed away in 2005 at the age of 92, her legacy continues. The Senate has decided to honor Parks by erecting a statue of her at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Parks will be the first African American woman to be honored in this way.