One of history’s women who made a difference

Drinking fountains for whites and others for blacks, schools for whites and schools for blacks, white kids had a school bus, most black children had to walk, it was the same for public transportation, segregated, racially.

Black people had to pay their bus fare at the front of the bus, get off and go to the back section which was marked with a moveable signpost for “coloreds,” while the white riders sat in front in the “whites only” section.

Almost 100 years after the emancipation proclamation and the abolition of slavery, America was still divided by color -by law, in all public, and most private, facilities and spaces. It took the courage of one woman, Rosa Parks, a simple seamstress and an NAACP (Association for the Advancement of Colored People) secretary in Alabama to make a stand – by not standing.

On December 1st, 1955 Rosa Parks adamantly refused to get up from her seat on the bus and relinquish it to a white rider, she had paid her fare and she was in the first row of the “coloreds” section. The bus driver called the police and had her arrested and she became the catalyst to a citywide boycott of the public bus system in order to repeal the segregation law.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, which through force of will by the black population lasted for over a year, crippled the bus company, as most of their riders were black, and forced integration into the national and international spotlight and onto the political agenda inciting the civil rights movement. On February 27th, 2013 President Obama unveiled a statue at the Capitol recognizing the importance of this woman in History.

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