Claudette Colvin | |
---|---|
Years active | 1969–2004 (as nurse aide) |
Era | Civil rights movement (1954–1968) |
Known for | Arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus, nine months before the similar Rosa Parks incident. |
Children | 2 |
Feb 20, 2007 · Feb. 20, 2007. Charles Langford, a civil rights lawyer whose best-known client was a Montgomery, Ala., seamstress named Rosa Parks, died on Feb. 11 at his home in Montgomery. He was 84.
Aug 20, 2013 · Fred D. Gray was 24 years old when he defended Rosa Parks after she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white person in Montgomery, Ala.
Dec 01, 2005 · Bobby Ross Jr. Editor-in-Chief. Fred Gray and his friend Rosa Parks ate lunch together that Thursday — Dec. 1, 1955 — as they often did. However, the woman who became …
12 hours ago · Fred Gray, whose legal work helped integrate UA, and who defended Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and many others, was honored by UA's law school.
That pastor’s name: Martin Luther King Jr. In the wake of Parks’ death, Gray expressed his deep sadness and reflected on her legacy.
Fred Gray and his friend Rosa Parks ate lunch together that Thursday — Dec. 1, 1955 — as they often did. However, the woman who became known as “the mother of the Civil Rights Movement” gave no indication that she planned to challenge the Montgomery, Ala., law forcing blacks to the back of public buses. “I can’t tell you what made her do ...
Four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested and fined for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white man. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system, and one of the leaders of the boycott, a young pastor named Martin Luther King, Jr., ...
The other Black riders complied, but Parks refused. She was arrested and fined $10, plus $4 in court fees. This was not Parks’ first encounter with Blake. In 1943, she had paid her fare at the front of a bus he was driving, then exited so she could re-enter through the back door, as required.
In 1999, the U.S. Congress awarded her its highest honor, the Congressional Gold Medal.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. The boycott took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation. Four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested and fined for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white man. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system, and one of the leaders of the boycott, a young pastor named Martin Luther King, Jr., emerged as a prominent leader of the American civil rights movement.
In 1955, African Americans were still required by a Montgomery, Alabama, city ordinance to sit in the back half of city buses and to yield their seats to white riders if the front half of the bus, reserved for whites, was full.
On June 5, 1956, a Montgomery federal court ruled that any law requiring racially segregated seating on buses violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That amendment, adopted in 1868 following the U.S. Civil War, guarantees all citizens—regardless of race—equal rights and equal protection under state and federal laws.
In January 1957, four Black churches and the homes of prominent Black leaders were bombed; a bomb at King’s house was defused. On January 30, 1957, the Montgomery police arrested seven bombers; all were members of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group.
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has called her "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement".
Parks' act of defiance and the Montgomery bus boycott became important symbols of the movement. She became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation, and organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including Edgar Nixon and Martin Luther King Jr..
California and Missouri commemorate Rosa Parks Day on her birthday, February 4, while Ohio and Oregon commemorate the anniversary of her arrest, December 1.
Early life. Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913, to Leona (née Edwards), a teacher, and James McCauley, a carpenter. In addition to African ancestry, one of Parks' great-grandfathers was Scots-Irish and one of her great-grandmothers a part- Native American slave.
In 1932, Rosa married Raymond Parks, a barber from Montgomery. He was a member of the NAACP, which at the time was collecting money to support the defense of the Scottsboro Boys, a group of black men falsely accused of raping two white women. Rosa took numerous jobs, ranging from domestic worker to hospital aide.
After working all day, Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus , a General Motors Old Look bus belonging to the Montgomery City Lines, around 6 p.m., Thursday, December 1, 1955, in downtown Montgomery. She paid her fare and sat in an empty seat in the first row of back seats reserved for blacks in the "colored" section. Near the middle of the bus, her row was directly behind the ten seats reserved for white passengers. Initially, she did not notice that the bus driver was the same man, James F. Blake, who had left her in the rain in 1943. As the bus traveled along its regular route, all of the white-only seats in the bus filled up. The bus reached the third stop in front of the Empire Theater, and several white passengers boarded. Blake noted that two or three white passengers were standing, as the front of the bus had filled to capacity. He moved the "colored" section sign behind Parks and demanded that four black people give up their seats in the middle section so that the white passengers could sit. Years later, in recalling the events of the day, Parks said, "When that white driver stepped back toward us, when he waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats, I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night."
In the 1970s, Parks organized for the freedom of political prisoners in the United States, particularly cases involving issues of self-defense. She helped found the Detroit chapter of the Joann Little Defense Committee, and also worked in support of the Wilmington 10, the RNA 11, and Gary Tyler. Following national outcry around her case, Little succeeded in her defense that she used deadly force to resist sexual assault and was acquitted. Gary Tyler was finally released in April 2016 after 41 years in prison.
Rosa Parks being fingerprinted by Deputy Sheriff D.H. Lackey after her arrest for boycotting public transportation. Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was a seamstress by profession; she was also the secretary for the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP.
Rosa Parks on a Montgomery bus on December 21, 1956, the day Montgomery's public transportation system was legally integrated. Behind Parks is Nicholas C. Chriss, a UPI reporter covering the event. Date. December 5, 1955 – December 20, 1956 (1 year and 16 days)
The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and a social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States.
Before the bus boycott, Jim Crow laws mandated the racial segregation of the Montgomery Bus Line. As a result of this segregation African Americans were not hired as drivers, were forced to ride in the back of the bus, and were frequently ordered to surrender their seats to white people even though black passengers made up 75% of the bus system's riders.
Main article: Baton Rouge bus boycott. On February 25, 1953, the Baton Rouge, Louisiana city-parish council passed Ordinance 222, after the city saw protesting from African-Americans when the council raised the city's bus fares.
Arrest of Claudette Colvin. Main article: Claudette Colvin. Black activists had begun to build a case to challenge state bus segregation laws around the arrest of a 15-year-old girl, Claudette Colvin, a student at Booker T. Washington High School in Montgomery.
On September 3, 1944, Recy Taylor , a black woman, was raped by 6 white men in Abbeville, Alabama. Rosa Parks investigated her case, and she and along with E.D. Nixon, Rufus A. Lewis, and E.G. Jackson, organized a defense for Taylor in Montgomery. They mobilized nation-wide support from labor unions, African-American organizations, and women's groups to form the Alabama Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor. Although they did not succeed in obtaining justice in court for Taylor, the mobilization of the black community in Alabama set up social and political networks that enabled the success of the Montgomery bus boycott a decade later.