The Montgomery Bus Boycott
America took its first steps towards racial integration in 1954 when the Supreme Court declared segregated school unconstitutional but America’s attitude toward their black brethren was far from friendly. Blacks still found themselves banned from swimming pools and hotels, separation among the races still an accepted practice. The civil rights movement had been bubbling to the surface of the racial volcano slowly but surely for years finally the revolution was sparked on December 1st 1955.
“For a number of years, the negro passengers on the city bus lines with Montgomery have been humiliated and intimidated And faced threat on this bus line Just the other day one of the fine citizens of our community Misses Rosa parks was arrested because she refused to give up her seat for a white passenger Misses Rosa parks was arrested And taken down to jail taken from the bus just because she refused to give up her seat at present we are in the midst of a protest the negro citizens of Montgomery representing some 44% percent of the population. 90 percent at least of the regular negro bus passengers are staying off the buses and we plan to continue until something is done” – Martin Luther King, Jr. Discussing the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Rosa Parks started something big tired from a long day work. Rosa sat in a row reserved for blacks, when all of the front white rows had filled the bus driver asked Rosa and three others to move so that a white man could have a seat. At that time blacks and whites weren’t allowed to occupy the same row. Parks refused and was arrested. Five days later on December 5th Rosa was fined ten dollars in police court, for violating the city bus segregation laws. It was shortly after repo...
... middle of paper ...
...victory won by the Montgomery bus boycott as a insignificant compared to be
Accomplishmenst that would be made later in the civil rights movement but as Rerta Wright wrote it helped to launch a 10-year national struggle for freedom in justice without the Montgomery Bus Boycott who knows if the civil rights for every would have
Ever came about.
"We are confronted primarily with a moral issue.... It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.... One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs... are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice... this Nation... will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.... Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise." Dallek, Robert (2003). An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963, pp. 604-606.
This source shows us what life was like for the black community, specifically black women, in the southern states of America. The source is a picture of a leaflet distributed in 1955 by the ?Women?s political council,? an anti-segregation group, calling for a boycott on the buses in Montgomery, Alabama. The involvement of women in politics only angered the white segregationists further. The boycott, which was originally intended to last only a single day, lasted for a total 381 days and it only ended when the American Supreme Court ruled that segregation on the buses was unconstitutional. This would have had a rather large impact on the business economy within Montgomery and possibly even Alabama. Montgomery subsequently changed its laws so that buses were integrated. Even though the supreme court ruled that segregation on the buses was unconstitutional it did not overturn all of the segregation laws.
Supreme Court decisions, segregation still pervaded American society by 1960. While protests and boycotts achieved moderate successes in desegregating aspects of education and transportation, other facilities such as restaurants, theaters, libraries, amusement parks and churches either barred or limited access to African Americans, or maintained separate, invariably inferior, facilities for black patrons.
In 1955, African Americans were required by a Montgomery, Alabama city ordinance to sit in the back of all city buses. They had to give up their seats to white American riders if the front of the bus, which was reserved for whites, was full. On December 1, 1955, a few days before the Montgomery Bus Boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African American woman, refused to give up her seat to a white man on the Montgomery bus. When the white seats filled, the driver, J. Fred Blake, asked Rosa Parks and three other African Americans to vacate their seats.
On December 5, 1955, thousands of African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama walked, carpooled, or hitchhiked to work in an act of rebellion against segregation on buses. This bus boycott was not the first of its kind – black citizens of Baton-Rouge, Louisiana had implemented the same two years prior – but the bus boycott in Montgomery was a critical battle of the Civil Rights Movement. Though the original intent of the boycott was to economically cripple the bus system until local politicians agreed to integrate the city’s buses, the Montgomery Bus Boycott impacted the fabric of society in a much deeper way. Instead of only changing the symptoms of a much larger problem, this yearlong protest was the first step in transforming the way all Americans perceived freedom and equality. Though the boycott ended when the Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional, this was not directly caused by the refusal to ride buses, and thus cannot be defined as the primary triumph of the boycott. Instead, the Montgomery Bus Boycott succeeded in changing the consciousness of millions of Americans, specifically southern blacks. A revolution of the mind was the greatest success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and this transformation occurred due to the small validations throughout the boycott that African Americans, as unified, free citizens, had power.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott took a stand in history by disagreeing to rule by Jim Crow laws, boycotting the racist rules and persisting in doing so. During this time, blacks were separated from whites because of their race. Blacks had to sit in the back of the bus at all times, even if there was room at the front. On December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks rode bus number 2857 in Montgomery, Alabama,(“Montgomery Bus Boycott,” History.com) On this day, she changed the course of history by refusing her seat to a white man. Rosa Parks had come back from a long day at work and didn't feel like moving to the back of the bus when the bus driver James F. Blake asked her to move to the back of the colored section, (“Montgomery Bus
On December 1st, 1955, Rosa had started the Montgomery Bus Boycott. On that day, she was asked to moved to the back of a Alabama bus for a white citizen to sit down. She refused. Little do people know, twelve years earlier, blacks were allowed to pay at the front of the bus but were not allowed to walk past whites to get to their segregated section. So, they were required to get off the bus and re-enter through the back entrance. So one rainy day, the driver allowed Parks to walk past to get to a seat, purposely sitting in a white citizens, acting as if she was picking up her purse. Then making the driver so angry he forced Parks to get off and walk 5 miles home in the rain. “I’d see the bus pass every day. But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first
Culturally, the Montgomery Bus Boycott set the mood of the entire Civil Rights Movement. The public buses in Montgomery, Alabama at the time were segregated, the whites sat at the front and the blacks sat at the back. During this time, the white community saw themselves as superior to the other races. However, the African-American community have started to stand up for themselves. Although she was not the first one to do so, Rosa Parks was the one to spark the boycott. She refused to give her seat up to a white passenger which resulted in her arrest. For Parks, “it is unlikely that she fully realized the forces she had set into motion and the controversy that would soon swirl around her” says the official website of the Montgomery Bus
Martin Luther King Jr. could not have said it better when he addressed the massive crowd at the first meeting of Montgomery Improvement Association and said, “ . . . we are here, we are here because we are tired now.”1 On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks, a seamstress who lived in Montgomery, Al, refused to give her seat up to a white man who had nowhere to sit on the bus. Because she would not move to the back of the bus, she was arrested for violating the Alabama bus segregation laws. Rosa was thrown in jail and fined fourteen dollars.
The event followed a case where Rosa Park was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man in a bus. The transport company services had a policy of segregation where black people were to stand for their white colleagues. If the former failed to do so, then they were immediately arrested. It showed that whites were so superior to blacks that they were to have total comfort even if it meant having it at the latter’s expense. The policy was a clear showing of white superiority. However, Mrs. Park’s defiance and the subsequent boycott was a reminder to the masses that skin color does not represent evolution. The bus company soon realized this, and it scrapped the segregation policy (Booke). It was the beginning of the realization that skin color did not represent superiority. In the end, this discernment dawned on the whole nation, and Jim Crow’s laws were repealed across the
The Montgomery bus boycott was caused when Rosa Parks, an African American woman on December 1, 1955 refused to obey the bus driver James Blake’s that demanded that she give up her seat to a white man. Because she refused, police came and arrested her. During her arrest and trial for this act of civil disobedience, it triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the largest and most successful mass movements against racial segregation in history. Her role in American history earned her an iconic status in American culture, and her actions have left an enduring legacy for civil rights movements around the world. Soon after her arrest, Martin Luther King Jr. led a boycott against the public transportation system because it was unfair. This launched Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the organizers of the
“The only tired I was,was tired of giving in”. Those words were spoken by the mother of The Civil Rights Movement,Rosa Parks,who was arrested for defying segregation laws.Which called for blacks and whites to attend different schools,drink from separate water fountains,and sit in partitioned sections of the bus.Rosa Parks was honored as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement because she was apart of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP),she stood up for what was right,and she was a big part of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
On December 1st, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the front of a bus to a white man. It was this simple act of defiance that, arguably, began the Civil Rights movement which lasted from 1955 through the 1960’s and altered the face of our nation forever. Following the arrest of Rosa Parks for her simple denial, African Americans in Montgomery began boycotting the bus system, one of the first major stands against racism in the 1950’s. On the heels of the Brown v. Board of Education segregation trial which had ruled in favor of school integration, this boycott, which proved successful after the seat separation was removed, effectively began the civil rights movement with which we are now so familiar with. The civil rights movement in America aimed to gain civil liberties and rights which were guaranteed by law but withheld from them in society. While the movement lasted from about 1954 to 1968, it was not until the 1960’s that other minorities such as American Indians and women began to join the fight. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s was possibly the most important domestic social movement of the twentieth century. At the very least, it was the most important social confrontation to grip America since the Civil War.
Rosa Parks was a member of the NAACP, lived in Montgomery Alabama, and rode the public bus system. In the south, during this time the buses were segregated which meant that black people had to ride in the back of the bus behind a painted line. White people entered the front of the bus and were compelled to sit in front of the painted line. Most buses at the time had more room for white riders who used the service less than the black ridership. Yet, they could not cross the line even if the seats in the front were empty (Brown-Rose, 2008). Rosa Parks made a bold statement when she sat in the “white section” of a Montgomery bus. She was asked to surrender her seat to a white man, but she did not move and was soon arrested. Her brave action started the Montgomery bus Boycott, with the help of the NAACP, none other than Dr. Martin Luther King’s leadership as part of the Montgomery Improvement Association. As its President, he was able spread the word quickly which brought national attention to the small town of Montgomery’s bus Boycott. The boycott was televised and brought so much attention that the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public transportation was unconstitutional; a success spurring a more
... black people, but laws say everyone is to be treated equal. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a main point in the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement and the Montgomery Boycott changed the way people are today. The before and after life of African Americans and even whites, is a huge difference.
The 13th amendment, passed on the first of January, 1865 abolished slavery throughout America. Although African Americans were considered free after this amendment was approved, they still had a long and arduous struggle to absolute freedom. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, segregation in the United States was frequently used throughout many of the Southern and Border States. Schools, bathrooms, libraries, and even water fountains were segregated. Though there were some laws that prevented segregation and discrimination at this time, they were not strongly enforced. Civil rights activists, revolting of being denied their rights as Americans, attempted to put an end to segregation and discrimination in America by starting boycotts and sometimes just simply talking about the issues of racial discrimination. The struggles for racial equality led to events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, sit-ins, the March on Washington, and much more. This political, legal, and social struggle to gain full citizenship rights for African Americans and to achieve racial equality is commonly known as the Civil Rights Movement (Civil Rights Movement). It was a time of tremendous change, and the Civil rights act of 1964, a bill passed on July 2, 1964, was hoping to conclude segregation and discrimination once and for all, however following the many years of anti-black violence and, unadulterated loathing towards African Americans, was it enough to change the mindset of the American people?