On December 1st, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, an African-American woman refused to obey the bus driver’s order that she give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger. And the rest, as they say, is history.
The then 42 year-old Rosa Parks was a respectable citizen of Montgomery, and her quiet defiance proved to become an enduring rally against racial inequality – spurring the 381 day boycott of public buses by the Montgomery black community. This was often at huge personal costs, with some residents walking over 30km to work.
The boycott, led by Martin Luther King, Jr as President of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), allowed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to successfully end the law on racial segregation, following the US Supreme Court ruling that it was unconstitutional.
Today, President Barack Obama sits in the same bus at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan and is a testament to the profound impact of Park’s simple act.
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