19.1.5

Rosa Parks

Test yourself

Rosa Parks and The Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955–60

On 1st December 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white man and was arrested.

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Bus segregation

  • By the 1950s, seats on buses in Alabama were segregated by race due to the Jim Crow Laws in place.
  • Black people were forced to sit at the back of the bus, and were forced to give up their seat to any white people that boarded.
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Rosa Parks

  • On 1st December 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white man and was arrested.
  • Rosa wasn’t the first to do this, but was chosen to be the figurehead of the boycott because she was a member of the NAACP and a respected citizen in her community.
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The WPC boycott

  • The WPC (Women’s Political Council) had been campaigning in Montgomery for years about bus segregation.
  • The WPC had warned Mayor Gayle that if another black person was arrested for breaking bus segregation rules there would be a boycott.
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The boycott

  • 90% of black people who used the bus stopped using them for 381 days in protest of segregation of the buses.
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The MIA

  • The Montgomery Improvement Association was set up to improve lives of blacks and support the boycott.
  • The MIA set up a car pool system to give lifts and used publicity to gain support.

Jump to other topics

1The Medieval World: 450-1450 AD

1.1Anglo-Saxon England

1.2The Contest for the English Throne

1.3Conquering the Holy Land, 10-96-1396 AD

1.4King John

1.5The Magna Carta & Parliament

1.6The Black Death

2Worldviews

3The Empire of Mali

4The Renaissance & Reformations, 1500-1598 AD

5The British Empire, 1583-1960 AD

6The Peasants' Revolt

7Religion in the Middle Ages

8Slavery, 1619-1833 AD

9The English Civil War, 1642-1660

10The Industrial Revolution, 1750-1840

11US Independence, 1775-1783

12The French Revolution, 1789-1815

13The British Empire, 1857–1930

14Suffrage

15World War 1, 1914-1918

16The Inter-War Years, 1919-1939

17World War 2, 1939-1945

18The Cold War, 1947-1962

19Civil Rights in the USA, 1954-1975

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