Hey guys! today we're talking with a courageous woman who took a bus ride that helped change America. She didn't take discrimination sitting down, and her bravery inspired many others in the fight for equality. For more information keep on reading the article till the end.
Rosa Parks was born in 1913 and grew up in and around Montgomery, Alabama, during the “Jim Crow” days.
What is ‘Jim Crow'?
It was a system of segregation laws and an unwritten code about how black people were to be treated in the South. Blacks went to different schools, ate in different restaurants, and drank from separate water fountains. Black people also had to sit in different parts of buses and trains.
What is ‘Ku Klux Klan'
It was a terrorist group that targeted black people. At that time Parks was only six years old and the Klan was riding through the black community, burning churches, beating people, and murdering.
The Americans in charge made it difficult for African-American to vote. Americans took a ridiculous test like guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar. Only passing that test allow black people to vote. They also charged a fee for voting and most blacks were too poor to pay. So, not being able to vote meant black couldn't elect leaders who would work to change the system.
By the 1950s parks had been working for years with civil rights groups that were trying to make sure blacks could vote. She also helped raise money for the legal defense of people who were arrested for resisting Jim Crow Laws and she became one of those people.
What Was the Bus Ride Incident and How African-Americans Able to Achieve Their Rights?
It was December 1, 1955, when Parks took a seat just behind the whites-only section of the bus. But, when the bus got too full of white people, the bus driver told her to move further back so a white man could have her seat. The driver started shouting at her and told her to move. But, she refuses to move in the back seat. American threw her off the bus. At that time local black community led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. organized a bus boycott. To protect against park arrest, black people refused to ride on city buses.
The leaders who organized the boycott intended it to only last one day, but the people of the community kept it up even after she was released from jail. People had to get to work somehow, and few blacks at the time had cars. Black churches raised money to buy station wagons and formed carpools to take people to work. The American leaders of the city of Montogomery were not happy. The city buses were losing a lot of money because we weren't riding them. The police harassed the carpool drivers, giving them tickets for traffic violations even when they hadn't committed one.
She also faced many death threats and Dr. King's home was bombed. Fortunately, neither he nor his family wasn't harmed. However, blacks were carried on brave and strong. The boycott lasted for 381 days. The movement's lawyers were working in the courts to challenge segregation laws. Then on December 20, 1956, a Supreme Court ruling went into effect that made bus segregation illegal.
The Civil right movements continued to grow. African-Americans got many new laws passed to protect their rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal to discriminate against blacks. The Voting Right Act of 1965 was passed to protect Blacks to vote. After the bus boycott parks and her husband, both lost their jobs. Eventually, they both moved North to Detroit, Michigan to find work. She continued to work in the civil rights movement and stayed involved in politics. In 1996 President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Who Are Rosa Park's Parents?
Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama to parents James McCauley and Leona Edwards. Her father was employed as a carpenter and her mother as a teacher. In her younger years she was sick much of the time, and as a result, was a small child. Her parents eventually separated and her mother took her and her brother and moved to Pine Level, a town adjacent to Montgomery, Alabama. There Rosa spent the rest of her childhood on her grandparents’ farm.
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