The Civil Rights Movement
On December 1, 1955, an obscure black woman, Mrs. Rosa
Parks, was riding home on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. As the
bus gradually filled up with passengers, a white man demanded
that she give him her seat and that she stand near the rear of
the bus. Mrs. Parks, who did not have the reputation of being a
troublemaker or a revolutionary, said that she was tired and
that her feet were tired. The white man protested to the
bus driver. When the driver also demanded that she move, she
refused. Then, the driver summoned a policeman, and Mrs. Parks
was arrested.
None of this was unusual. Daily, all across the South, black
women surrendered their seats to demanding whites. Although most
of them did it without complaint, the arrest of an
obstructionist was entirely within the framework of local laws
and in itself was not a noteworthy event. However, the arrest of
Mrs. Parks touched off a chain reaction within Montgomery's Afro-
American community. If she had been a troublemaker, the community
might have thought that she had only received what she deserved.
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