Make Up Your Mind...Rosa Parks

"I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear."

--Rosa Parks, Seamstress and Civil Rights Activist

Rosa Parks bronze artwork depicting her refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on 12/1/1955; Rosa Parks Children's Museum, Montgomery, AL


Today we remember Rosa M. Parks who was arrested on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama for her refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a public bus. Her courageous act and arrest became the catalyst for the Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasted 381 days. 381 days African Americans and allies did not ride the bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

On December 21, 1956 the Montgomery Bus Boycott ended after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal lower court's ruling in Browder vs. Gayle that local and State laws segregating seats on public buses were a violation of the 14th Amendment and therefore unconstitutional. Although the lawsuit did not include Rosa Parks but six other individuals who had to give up their seats to white passengers, Parks' act on December 1, 1955 was the catalyst for the lawsuit and the subsequent boycott which would be led by a young, then somewhat unknown pastor, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Today we celebrate Rosa Parks, the mother of the Civil Rights Movement and the other unnamed over 40,000 participants in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. 

For more information on Rosa Parks, go to: http://www.rosaparks.org