In 1955, an activist made history by refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. Rosa Parks, who would have turned 110, gave impetus to the civil rights movement and inspired Martin Luther King. It was 1955 in the United States: Radio stations were playing Bill Haley’s hit Rock repeatedly around the clock; the comedy The Sin Lives Next Door, starring Marilyn Monroe, which premiered in New York; and on television the western series Gunsmoke would soon be released. In the same year, such famous Americans as Bill Gates, Bruce Willis and Whoopi Goldberg were born. And it was also in 1955 that Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy, was brutally murdered in the south of the country by two white men.
The protests following the acquittal of his killers marked the beginning of the black civil rights movement – along with another major episode of black resistance, the “Montgomery Bus Boycott”, itself linked to a woman born on February 4 1913: Rosa Parks.
Segregation has led to resistance
Racism was a sad, everyday thing in the Southern United States at the time. People were separated from each other on the basis of physical characteristics. There were schools and benches for blacks and whites.
The rules for using public transport were also clear: on the buses, the front seats were reserved for whites, while blacks had to sit in the back. They had to pay the driver their fare and then go around the vehicle to enter through the back door. They were even tolerated in center seats, as long as they stood up if white people wanted to sit there.
At the time, Rosa Parks worked as a seamstress in a department store in Montgomery, Alabama in the southern United States. When she took the yellow-and-green bus home from work on December 1, 1955, she had no idea that Thursday would go down in history.
Parks was 42, married, fearless, and a longtime activist for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an organization that supports black civil rights.
When asked to get up from her seat to make room for a white man, she just sat there. Even when the bus driver threatened to arrest her, she remained calm and replied, “You can do it.” Shortly thereafter she was arrested by the police.
Immediately after the arrest, the Montgomery Women’s Council issued a call for a boycott among the black community. Black people were expected to avoid all city buses on Monday, when Parks’ hearing was to be held, and instead walk or take a cab. Almost all blacks attended. Parks was ordered to pay a $14 fine for “misconduct” and “violating local laws.”
Martin Luther King supported the protest
The boycott continued, and a relatively unknown pastor at the time played a significant role in the peaceful protest: Martin Luther King was in his early 20s and coordinated the boycott. And so he made some enemies. He survived two attacks but persisted in his mission of preaching nonviolent resistance.
On November 13, 1956, the United States Supreme Court overturned racial segregation on public transportation, ending the nearly 380-day boycott.
It was a first big and important victory for the civil rights movement. He has shown that fighting is worth it: united, without violence and against all odds. That experience shaped Martin Luther King. As chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) civil rights movement, which grew out of the Montgomery bus boycott, he initiated the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom along with other organizations a few years later. It was then that he gave his famous “I have a dream” speech, in front of 200,000 people.
Rosa Parks: Making the world a better place
“I had no idea it would turn into so much,” Rosa Parks later recalled. “My feet hurt and I don’t know why I refused to get up. But the real reason was that I felt I had the right to be treated like any other passenger.”
Parks wasn’t the first woman to dare to defend her place on the bus and in society, but her integrity and closeness to the NAACP, where she served as a volunteer secretary, made her case a precedent. She was ready to overcome all stops and determined to make the world a better place, a place where everyone could live in freedom.
“For as long as I can remember, I knew there was something wrong with our way of life when people could be treated badly because of the color of their skin,” he said at a 1956 NAACP meeting. which he considered wrong. The decision not to get on the bus was therefore not a spontaneous impulse, but a logical consequence.
Effects on the future life of Rosa Parks
However, the freedom Parks fought for was taken away from her. She was no longer safe in Montgomery. After losing her job and receiving death threats, she fled with her husband to her brother’s Detroit home. There she found work as a seamstress and continued to fight for civil rights and freedoms. From 1965, Parks worked as a secretary to black Congressman John Conyers until she retired.
Rosa Parks has become an icon of the civil rights movement. Since 1998, some US states have celebrated Rosa Parks Day (Rosa Parks Day), some on December 1, others on February 4, her birthday. This Saturday (04/02), Parks would have turned 110 years old.
When the Detroit house where she took refuge was about to be demolished in 2016, her granddaughter bought it and commissioned American artist Ryan Menoza to take it apart and rebuild it in Berlin.
Two years later it returned to the USA, to be installed in Naples in 2020. Parks herself has never experienced it. She died in 2005, at the age of 92, and became the first African-American woman to be honored with a statue in the United States Capitol.
Source: Terra
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
