ROSA PARKS ARRESTED FOR VIOLATION OF SEGREGATION CODE
Montgomery, Alabama (JFK+50) Sixty-two years ago, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks* was arrested here in Montgomery for violation of the city's segregation code, Chapter 6, Section 11. Ms. Parks, on her way home from work, boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus in downtown Montgomery at 6 p.m. She sat five rows back in the first row reserved for African-Americans.
When the bus reached the third stop in front of the Empire Theater, bus driver James Blake ordered Ms. Parks and three other black passengers to give up their seats to the boarding white passengers. While the other passengers followed Blake's directions, Rosa Parks did not.
Rosa later recalled...
"When that white driver stepped back toward us...and ordered us out of our seats, I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night."
Mr. Blake called the police and Ms. Parks was arrested, taken to jail, and charged. Ironically, it was the same driver who had put Rosa Parks off his bus in 1943. Rosa said after the years passed that some people claimed she was "tired" on that day, but, in her own words, she was just "tired of giving in."
Rosa Parks was found guilty of violating segregation laws, given a suspended sentence and fined $10 plus $4 court costs. The arrest and sentencing of Rosa Parks led directly to establishment of the Montgomery Improvement Association by Rev. Ralph Abernathy and other ministers. They chose Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. as its president.
One week later, Rev. King said...
"There comes a time that people get tired. We...are tired of being segregated and humiliated, tired of being kicked about by the brutal feet of oppression."
"We Shall Overcome: The History of the Civil Rights Movement As It Happened," by Herb Boyd, Sourcebooks Inc., Naperville, IL, 2004.
Montgomery, Alabama (JFK+50) Sixty-two years ago, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks* was arrested here in Montgomery for violation of the city's segregation code, Chapter 6, Section 11. Ms. Parks, on her way home from work, boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus in downtown Montgomery at 6 p.m. She sat five rows back in the first row reserved for African-Americans.
When the bus reached the third stop in front of the Empire Theater, bus driver James Blake ordered Ms. Parks and three other black passengers to give up their seats to the boarding white passengers. While the other passengers followed Blake's directions, Rosa Parks did not.
Rosa later recalled...
"When that white driver stepped back toward us...and ordered us out of our seats, I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night."
Mr. Blake called the police and Ms. Parks was arrested, taken to jail, and charged. Ironically, it was the same driver who had put Rosa Parks off his bus in 1943. Rosa said after the years passed that some people claimed she was "tired" on that day, but, in her own words, she was just "tired of giving in."
Rosa Parks was found guilty of violating segregation laws, given a suspended sentence and fined $10 plus $4 court costs. The arrest and sentencing of Rosa Parks led directly to establishment of the Montgomery Improvement Association by Rev. Ralph Abernathy and other ministers. They chose Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. as its president.
One week later, Rev. King said...
"There comes a time that people get tired. We...are tired of being segregated and humiliated, tired of being kicked about by the brutal feet of oppression."
*Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was born in Tuskegee, Alabama in 1913. She had to walk to her elementary school while fellow white students rode the bus. RLMP was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999 as the 'Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.' She died at the age of 92 on Oct 24, 2005.
SOURCE
"We Shall Overcome: The History of the Civil Rights Movement As It Happened," by Herb Boyd, Sourcebooks Inc., Naperville, IL, 2004.
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