Rosa Parks

I’m a bit of a Doctor Who fan and the other night I watched the episode “Rosa” which has sparked my interest to find out more information about Rosa Parks, the lady the episode was based on.  I must admit I hadn’t heard of her before, but it turns out she is a remarkable woman who helped to change the way ‘blacks’ and other ‘coloured’ people were treated in the USA during the last century.

Rosa Parks was born on the 4^th February 1913 and is known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasted over 12 months in late 1955 and 1956. 

It was the law back then in Montgomery, Alabama that people of ‘colour’ were segregated from the ‘white’ people including on the local buses. The buses had ‘whites only section’ and another section for the coloured people.  When the white only section on the bus was full the coloured people had to relinquish their seat for the white people. 

On the 1^st December 1955, Rosa Parks was travelling home on the bus when she was asked to move from the coloured section so that a white person could have a seat.  At that moment Rosa decided to take a stance for herself and her fellow black people and refused to move when the bus driver James Blake ordered her to move.  Rosa was arrested and charged with civil disobedience for violating the Alabama segregation laws.  She later lost her job and received death threats for the stances she took that day on the bus.

Rosa, who was well liked in her community combined with her commitment to see change, inspired the black community to boycott the Montgomery buses for over 12 months.  This was the first major post war action of the civil rights movements and this boycott was led by Martin Luther King Jr.

While she was not the first person to resist segregation, she was one of the first to have the courage and strength to see it through a major court challenge that resulted from her arrest on the bus. The case finally succeeded in November 1956 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional.

Rosa died in 2005.

While Rosa only did one little things by standing up for herself and her community this started a rippling effect that is still felt today.  If you believe in something take a stance because you too could change the world.