On this day in 1943, the civil rights activist Rosa Parks rejected a bus driver’s order to vacate a seat reserved in the “white” section of the bus.
Parks wasn’t the first person who resisted bus segregation, but she helped inspire the black community to boycott the city buses for over a year.
#OTD #OnThisDay #history #CivilRights #RosaParks #BlackHistory #BlackWomen
It was 1955, not 1943.
@[email protected] Ah, thank you for catching that!
Alarmingly recent.
She wasn’t sitting in the white section. She was sitting in the colored section. The event was that the white section was full, so a white lady that didn’t have a seat complained to the bus driver and he asked Rosa Parks to move per policy at the time. Rosa Parks refused, which provided the spark for the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Fun fact: This wasn’t a wild event that just happened and Rosa Parks wasn’t the first Black persons to refuse to move. The NAACP were already planning a legal challenge to the law and the bus boycott needed something to trigger it in order to politically pressure the legal case. They believed that Rosa Parks had the qualities needed to be the proper political spark for the boycott.
Another fun fact: Rosa Parks sued LaFace Records over Outkast using her name with out permission for their song song titled after her. The initial suit was dismissed in 1999, but it came back in 2004. Parks’ family argued that this behavior was not like her and believed her caretakers and lawyers were the ones pushing for the law suit. An ex Michigan Supreme Court justice was placed in charge of her affairs and LaFace/Outkast settled with her privately out of court.
@[email protected] Yes, I corrected that shortly after this was posted, maybe your server is showing the old version of the post?
Either way, thank you!
And #OnThisDay in 1955 the Montgomery bus boycott started. It lasted until December 20, 1956, a bit over a year, “when the federal ruling Browder v. Gayle took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional”.
Just a reminder that when we fight for our rights, we have to commit for the long haul.
#OTD #history #BlackHistory #CivilRights #RosaParks
