Rosa Parks: Taking a Seat Against Segregation.

This paper examines Rosa Parks and her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

This paper examines Rosa Parks and her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The author analyzes the consequences of her actions and shows how civil disobedience and the refusal to obey an unjust law, was an effective method of dissenting protest. Included is an examination of the effects of these events upon the Civil Rights Movement.
“In 1955, Montgomery, AL had a municipal law that required black citizens to ride in the back of the city’s buses. That year, Mrs. Rosa Parks, a forty-two year old seamstress, boarded a city bus and sat in the first row of seats in the black section of the bus. The designated white section of the bus was quickly filled and when more white passengers boarded the bus, the driver ordered Mrs. Parks to give up her seat and move back. She refused, and was arrested. When questioned about her actions, Parks replied, When I declined to give up my seat, it was not that day, or bus, in particular. I just wanted to be free like everybody else. I did not want to be continually humiliated over something that I had no control over: the color of my skin. Her courageous act touched off a 381-day bus boycott led by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and helped spark the civil rights revolution that followed.”