The First Lady of Civil Rights - Rosa Parks

On a cold winter afternoon in Montgomery, Alabama, she defied the society that she grew up in, refusing to give up her seat on the bus because she believed everyone is equal. Today, history remembers her as the First Lady of Civil Rights. Their contributions made the world a better place. This is women who made a difference.

Rosa Parks is a name history will never forget. This African American woman is remembered for a pivotal moment in American history when in 1955 she refused an order from a bus driver to give up her seat to a white person. Her actions inspired her community. to rise up in support and participate in something we now remember as the Montgomery bus boycott.

The interesting thing about this pivotal day in history is that she wasn't sitting in the white section of the bus but in the section designated for black people. But the white section was full so the bus driver, James Blake, ordered her to give up her seat. She refused. Keep in mind, these were the days of segregation, when water fountains, public restrooms, and even bus seats were divided into white and black sections.

Her resistance showed courage and conviction, and her act of civil disobedience led to her being arrested for violating the laws of the state of Alabama. which enforced segregation on buses throughout the city. She was also fired from her job. But her open resistance inspired the black community of Montgomery to launch a boycott of all the buses that would last for more than a year.

The black community made up 75 percent of the riders of the bus system in Montgomery and they were able to do this boycott because black taxi drivers gave them a discount. The community gathered together and organized carpools. And some African Americans lived close enough to work where they decided to walk.

After her arrest, Rosa called one of the city's black leaders, E. D. Nixon, who promptly bailed her out. He thought she was a sympathetic figure and would be the perfect standard bearer to file a court case to overturn segregation on public transportation. But her case wound up in state courts and kind of got bogged down.

Another case, Browder v. Gale, with multiple plaintiffs, was already making its way through the federal courts around the same time. When the federal court ruling came down, it was a bombshell. In the summer of 1956, the court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional. Stunned city leaders appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court ratified the lower court's decision in December of that year, and bus segregation came to an end across America. With an amazing victory, the Montgomery bus boycott came to an end just over a year after Rosa Parks inspired it to start. Rosa became an icon in the civil rights movement, inspiring black leaders including Martin Luther King Jr.

In the years that followed, her reputation only grew. What she was a part of down in Alabama was just an inkling of the struggle for racial equality that would continue all over America into the 1960s. She would go on to win the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and after her death, a statue of her was placed in the United States Capitol's Statuary Hall.

She was considered such an important figure of the 20th century that when she died in 2005, she became the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda. Multiple states across the nation now honor her with state holidays. Some, like California and Missouri, commemorate her birthday. Others commemorate the anniversary she was arrested.

What made Rosa Parks resist the order to give up her seat on the bus in December of 1955? In her childhood, she had been bullied by white children who sometimes abused her physically. But even as a young age, Rosa was no coward. She was not afraid and she would defend herself and fight back, even physically.

She later recounted that she remembered she wouldn't just accept physical abuse, she would fight. In 1943, she got very interested in civil rights and joined the NAACP in Montgomery. She became the secretary for the local chapter. And even though the group was working for the advancement of human dignity, She discovered sexism to a degree that shocked her.

The local leader of the chapter even told her once that women don't need to be nowhere but the kitchen. The murder of Emmett Till occurred in the summer of 1955, just a few months before Rosa kept her seat on that bus. Just a few days before refusing to give up her seat, she attended a church meeting that talked about the racially motivated murder of Emmett Till.

Out of the seeds of one tragedy, hope sprang eternal. Rosa Parks would muster the strength To defy the injustice of segregation and inspire a generation to work for a better world. Rosa Parks stood up for the courage of her convictions. She became an icon of the civil rights movement and she was indeed a woman who made a difference.