Montgomery Bus Boycott
December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a black woman, refused to give up her seat to a white man. Black men and woman were expected to give up their seat to a white male or female. Rosa Parks was part of the NAACP at the time. The NAACP was an organization that wanted to stop segregation. Rosa Parks was chosen to represent the NAACP, while testing the case. When Rosa Parks got to jail, she called Reverend E.B. Nixon. That was her reverend at the time. After that, phone calls were made to others, including Martin Luther King Jr. They decided on December 5, all blacks would boycott riding Montgomery buses.
December 5, nobody rode the buses. It took a toll on Montgomery bus employees, because blacks were 66% of the bus population. Without them on the bus, there would be no money. The black community protested the bus boycott, but they did it in a unique way. They decided to do it without any violence. The white people weren’t fans of the protest and would try to fight the blacks, but it didn’t work. It took 381 days of bus boycotting, but finally segregation was not allowed on public transportation.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was important, because it represented something African Americans felt passionately about. They knew it was wrong to be forced to give up their seat on a bus just because of their skin. They stood up for what they believed in and wouldn’t stop, until they got the results they deserved. There wasn’t one single person that made segregation come to an end. It was an effort by the whole black community that got segregation to end, something they should always be proud of.
http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/systems/agentsheets/New-Vista/bus-boycott/