Transcript Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and the Montgomery

Written by Lin Donn
Illustrated by Phillip Martin
One day in December 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks boarded a city
bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was tired from a busy
day at work. She was tired of sitting in the back of the bus.
But mostly, she was tired of the wrongness of things. It
didn't make any sense. It had never made any sense.
There was a law in Alabama that required persons of color
to ride in the back of the bus and to give up their seat to a
white person if the bus was crowded. Why should she have
to sit in the back? Why should she have to give up her seat
just because of her skin color?
That day, when the bus
driver told her to move to
allow a white person to
be seated, Mrs. Parks
refused. She did not
argue. She simply
refused to get up and
move. She could have
been hurt. Someone
could have shoved her or
hit her. No one did. The
bus driver called the
police. The police took
Mrs. Parks away to jail.
It was not the first time someone had refused to move.
But it was the first time that it was someone many people
knew. Mrs. Parks had once worked as the secretary to
the president of the NAACP (National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People.) That was an important
job. She knew a lot of people, and they knew her. They
knew she was soft-spoken and gentle and kind.
When Martin Luther King,
Jr. heard that Mrs. Parks had
been arrested, he called a
meeting at his church. A huge
crowd gathered to hear what he
had to say. People wanted things
to change, but they were afraid.
They did not want to be arrested
or attacked. People
shrugged their shoulders
and said there was nothing
they could do. It was just
the way things were.
Dr. King believed there was something they could do.
They could boycott. They could refuse to ride the buses.
That would cost the city a lot of money. The city and bus
officials would not like that.
On the morning of December
5th, not everyone, but many
people of color refused to ride
the bus. They walked. They
rode mules. Those few people
with cars acted as a shuttle
service, taking others to work
and wherever they needed to
go.
It took a long time for the
boycott to work. It took 381
days.
Change came on November 13, 1956, when the Supreme
Court ruled that Alabama's laws requiring segregation on
buses - requiring persons of color to ride in the back of the
bus, and to give up their seat in the colored section to a white
person if the bus was crowded - were illegal.
At first, the Montgomery city
government ignored the
Supreme Court ruling. About
a month later, federal orders
were given to the city and
bus company officials that
gave them a choice - they
could obey the Supreme
Court's ruling or they could
go to jail themselves!
Many white people were glad. They wanted things to
change. But some white people were angry. During the
year-long boycott, they fought back with acts of terrorism.
They threw a bomb at Dr. King's house. His wife and baby
daughter were inside. His family did escape, but it was a
terrifying thing.
Every time something
terrifying happened, even
when they bombed his home
knowing his wife and baby
daughter were
inside, Dr. King met
anger with love. "We
must learn to meet
hate with love," he
would say.
Finally, just over a year after the
courageous Rosa Parks refused to
give up her seat, a very good thing
happened. A few days before
Christmas, Dr. King, a black
minister, and his good friend
Reverend Smiley, a white minister,
sat together on the front seat of a
Montgomery city bus. The battle
for equal rights under the law was
not won. There were many battles
ahead before the job would be
done. But that was a most special
morning.
To learn more about this historic
event, explore the links below.
They Changed the World
Eyes on the Prize
Rosa Parks,
How I Fought for Civil Rights
Martin Luther King Jr.
Black History Month - Free Presentations in PowerPoint format
Free Black History Month Clipart
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