Rosa Parks
By: Kim Hiskett
On December 1, 1955, after a long day's work at a Montgomery department store, where Rosa Parks worked as a seamstress, Rosa Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus for home. She took a seat in the first of several rows designated for "colored" passengers. Though the city's bus ordinance did give drivers the authority to assign seats, it didn't specifically give them the authority to demand a passenger to give up a seat to anyone (regardless of color). However, Montgomery bus drivers had adopted the custom of requiring black passengers to give up their seats to white passengers, when no other seats were available. If the black passenger protested, the bus driver had the authority to refuse service and could call the police to have them removed.
Rosa Parks - Mini Bio
Fun Facts
- Parks was not the first African-American woman to be arrested for refusing to yield her seat on a Montgomery bus.
- Parks did not refuse to leave her seat because her feet were tired.