Rosa Parks and the Civil

Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement in America

Many historians trace the actual origins of beginnings of the American Civil Rights Movement to the brave action of a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955.

It was on his day that Rosa Parks "....refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. "(Rosa Parks Biography: Pioneer of Civil Rights) She was subsequently arrested for the violation of a city ordinance. However this action was to have great symbolic ramifications and her act was seen as a gesture of defiance against a system that many Americans perceived as unjust and discriminatory.

The event is described as follows:

Rosa Parks boarded a city bus and sat with three other blacks in the fifth row, the first row that blacks could occupy. A few stops later, the front four rows were filled with whites, and one white man was left standing. According to law, blacks and whites could not occupy the same row, so the bus driver asked all four of the blacks seated in the fifth row to move. Three complied, but Parks refused. She was arrested.

(The Montgomery Bus Boycott)

This act was to ignite and bring to the surface the results of many years of silence and oppression among minority groups in the country.

In the opinion of one study: "...her lonely act of defiance began a movement that ended legal segregation in America, and made her an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere." (Rosa Parks Biography: Pioneer of Civil Rights)

Of course the American Civil Rights Movement had many other origins and precursors. The peak of the Movement's activities was in the period between 1955 and 1965. One of the aims of the movement was achieved with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed by congress.

During these years there were numerous marches and demonstrations that were to lead to the achievement of the Civil Rights Act. These ranged from the "Montgomery bus boycott to the student-led sit-ins of the 1960s to the huge March on Washington in 1963." (The Civil Rights Movement 1955-1965: Introduction) One of the most well-known events however was the Montgomery Bus Boycott which began on December 1, 1955. "That was the day when the blacks of Montgomery, Alabama, decided that they would boycott the city buses until they could sit anywhere they wanted, instead of being relegated to the back when a white boarded." (The Civil Rights Movement 1955-1965: Introduction)

The actions of Parks which led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott also involved the foremost leader of the Civil Rights movement in the country; namely Martin Luther King, jr.

An article on the subject states that at the time of the incident Parks made a number of phone calls to various civil rights activists and as a result, "The Women's Political Council proposed a one-day boycott of the buses." (King and the Civil Rights Movement) King and other leaders were also involved in the subsequent boycott and, "Recalling Thoreau's words about not cooperating with an evil system...King thought of the movement as massive noncooperation." (King and the Civil Rights Movement)

It must also be noted that although Parks was working as seamstress at the time she was very well educated and was already involved as a civil rights activist. "Parks was educated; she had attended the laboratory school at Alabama State....She was also a long-time NAACP worker..." (The Montgomery Bus Boycott)

Martin Luther King, Jr. was in the forefront if the nonviolent movement for civil rights in the country. King was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929. He received many of his views about human equality and social fairness and justice from his father, who was a Baptist preacher. He also chose the ministry as his career and graduated from the Morehouse College in Atlanta. (King and the Civil Rights Movement)

King was very interested in and influenced by the philosophy of the Indian political leader, Mahatma Gandhi.

He was particularly in favor of the nonviolent form of protest that Gandhi had so successfully used in colonial India to fight racial discrimination and prejudice. Martin Luther King, Jr. was also against many of the tendencies of materialist capitalist society, although he rejected the tenets of Marxism. In 1953 he earned his Ph.D. In theology from Boston University. (King and the Civil Rights Movement)

King accepted a pastorate in Montgomery, Alabama and became involved in the growing movement for inequality and freedom from discrimination.

He was an avowed critic of all forms of social injustice.

He became active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and in the integrated Alabama Council on Human Relations. (King and the Civil Rights Movement)

An example of his involvement in fighting various incidents of racial injustice was in 1955 when, "... A fifteen-year-old girl had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on the bus. King was on the committee that protested this..." (King and the Civil Rights Movement)

On the day that Rosa Parks as arrested, Dr. King was elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). (King and the Civil Rights Movement) This was to lead to a protest demonstration outside the Holt Street Baptist Church, which was attended by thousands of people. (King and the Civil Rights Movement)

At this meeting King echoed the sentiment of many Americans who were tired of unjust discrimination and who supported the stand that Rosa Parks had taken. In his view the only viable alternative and way to deal with this obvious social discrimination "... was to protest for freedom and justice. "(King and the Civil Rights Movement) The method that he promulgated to achieve these aims was through nonviolent marches and protests. He was adamant however that, " No one must be intimidated to keep them from riding the buses."