Rosa Parks
History: KS3, topic 21.1.5
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.
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.
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.
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.
The boycott
- 90% of black people who used the bus stopped using them for 381 days in protest of segregation of the buses.
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.
Test yourself on Rosa Parks
When was Rosa Parks arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white man?
What does WPC stand for?