December 1, 1955 was a day that I will never forget because it marks the anniversary of the Montgomery bus incident. On that date, I had gotten on a city bus to head home after a long day working at the tailor shop, and I was later arrested. At this point, my mind was focused on why equality is deserved and how I should defend my spot on the bus. I had been sitting in a seat in the back half of the bus where I was supposed to go. During a certain point in the ride home, there had been an excess amount of people getting on compared to the usual 5-10 passengers. Therefore, some of us blacks had been told to give up our seats to the white people who “deserved” it more. Me, being African-American was one of the “lucky” ones who was told to let …show more content…
It was a normal day, and I was at work until I had to go. Then everything took a turn once I had sat down on the bus and was asked to give up my seat to a “more deserving” person than I. The way I reacted was by deciding that standing up for myself was the best way to go. So, I stayed on the bus until the bus driver had called the police to come and get me. They eventually had shown up to where I was on the bus and handcuffed me, and I was then arrested sitting in a cop car. At the start of the day, I had foreseen a nice, normal day without having big problems to worry about such as this one. As soon as this had all happened, and I was arrested and put in jail, my whole day was turned around. This being said, jail was a very different experience compared to everyday normal routines. It was so isolated, and you were put in a cell with very little places to sit or things to do. Jail was not a place I would call nice, but once you're there, you start to think about what you did to end up there in the first place. Even with those thoughts, I still had the gut feeling, wondering why segregation was a rule that had to be made. The idea of separating people for the color of their skin was just a way of discriminating race against people. Many African-Americans were living in poverty and ended up in desperate need for simple, everyday items because they weren’t allowed to have good jobs to pay for those costs. I myself grew up in a family where everyone, no matter what the age, as long as you could walk and talk, had to work a job to earn money. There were times in my life, when my family and I barely had enough to keep our house. This just goes to show that everyone matters, and nobody should have to live in
Since the creation of our country, African Americans have dealt with prejudice. They have faced many challenges and obstacles, such as segregation. After all of the slaves were emancipated, most public facilities participated in the separation of colored and white people. One of the facilities that was segregated, included the bus system. African Americans had to sit in the back of the bus and, when necessary, had to give up their seat to any white bus rider. Document 1 and 4 show the segregation in schools, which invigorated children and parents, because this made many African Americans students feel inferior. The conclusion of “separate but equal” did not seem to be working in the education system. Restaurants were also segregated. White males and females were given much better service, and restaurants were often separated. Another way African Americans faced inequality, was through the denial of constitutional rights. In many instances, African Americans guaranteed rights were taken away from them. For example the 14th Amendment was violated, which guarantees equal protection of the law and it forbids any state from making laws that
The Civil Rights Movement is often thought to begin with a tired Rosa Parks defiantly declining to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She paid the price by going to jail. Her refusal sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which civil rights historians have in the past credited with beginning the modern civil rights movement. Others credit the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education with beginning the movement. Regardless of the event used as the starting point of the moment, everyone can agree that it is an important period in history. In the forty-five years since the modern civil rights movement, several historians have made significant contributions to the study of this era. These historians
I read The Back of the Bus, by Mary Mebane. In this essay Mebane tells us about a real life situation that she witnessed as a young girl. The situation occurred in the 1940's, while segregation was almost at it's worst. Mebane talks about the tension between the people on the bus when a white man got on and there was only one seat left, next to a black man. During all the tension the bus driver tried to tell the black man to move but, as he did a black woman stood up fighting for the black man and his seat. The bus driver realized they were at the last stop and let the situation go, as if nothing happened. I believe that the black man shouldn't have had to move but for his sake, he should have moved so he wouldn't have had to face the harsh
The second element of the ruling - the effect it had on African-American supporters and the encouragement if afforded - had a greater impact. Paterson and Willoughby say the 'psychological need for integration6’ had been recognised, what Patterson calls ‘the symbolic value of Brown’7. All three historians agree that African-Americans needed some success to motivate the continued struggle, and this Brown provided. Patterson says activists were ‘extraordinarily heartened by Brown’8. Kevern Verney talks of a ‘renewed hope’9 given to African-Americans. They were similarly helped by Browder v. Gayle in 1956, which ruled the bus segregation in Montgomery unconstitutional, and Boyton v. Virginia in 1960, which extended this ruling to waiting rooms and restaurants. According to Willoughby and Paterson, the ‘clear-cut decision’ came ‘in the knick-of time'10 for the protest movement, which might not have succeeded without the ruling by the court. Even here, however, the court was unable to enforce the actions. One observer recalled a ‘bus station ... still rigorously segregated’11, in 1966. These examples show the Supreme Court as advancing the Civil Rights by passing favourable and motivating rulings, but it certainly fell short when it came to enforcing them. Taking everything into account, the Supreme Court was a force for change, but not without fault, in the later 20th century.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, one of the leaders of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP] refused to give up her seat to a white person on a segregated city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, despite being reprimanded by the driver (Schulke 166). Montgomery, Alabama was known for its terrible treatment of blacks. The buses in particular had been a source of tension between the city and black citizens for many years (Schulke, 167). As a result of refusing to give up her seat, Rosa Parks was arrested. Rosa Parks' popularity among the black community, proved to be the spark that ignited the non-violent Civil Rights Movement (Norrell 2).
An man from India deeply influenced a black man in America who persuaded black Americans to peacefully seek civil rights. Blacks in America were once slaves. They had neither freedom nor rights. Now, in the 20th century, segregation has been abolished and discrimination has largely been reduced and blacks are more able to live freely as American citizens. In Early 1950’s, blacks did not have civil rights, so they had to fight for their freedom. In 1955, blacks decided to rally together for social justice and planned a boycott. This boycott became known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This boycott was pivotal in the Civil Right Movement by energizing blacks, particularly in the South, to become more involved in politics. This occurred with
On Thursday evening December 1, 1955, Rosa boards a Montgomery City Bus to go home after a long day working as a seamstress. She walks back to the section for blacks, and takes a seat. The law stated that they could sit there if no White people were standing. Rosa parks never liked segregation rules and has been fighting against them for more than ten years in the NAACP, but until then had never broke any of the unjust rules. As the bus stops at more places, more white people enter the bus, all the seats in the “White Only” section was filled and the bus driver orders Rosa’s row to move to the back of the bus, they all moved, accept Rosa. She was arrested and fined for violating a city regulation. This act of defiance began a movement that ended legal Segregation in America, and made her an inspiration to freedom devoted people everywhere.
A growing amount of American people began to speak out about inequality and injustice during the 1950’s and the Rosa Parks bus incident is a perfect example. On December 1, 1955, a 42 year old African American woman who worked as a seamstress
Since the Supreme Court case of Plessy Vs Ferguson way back in 1892, which ruled the separation of blacks and whites constitutional as long as all public facilities provided were “separate but equal,” the United States had been segregated. As with all other public facilities at the time, the busses in Montgomery Alabama were also subject to this segregation, and it wasn’t until 1956 with the beginning of what became to be known as the “Montgomery Bus
On December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Everyone has heard of this story, but what most people don’t know is that Lieutenant Jack “Jackie” Robinson also made the same action, 11 years earlier (“Robinson Refuses to Move to the Back of the Bus”). On July 6th, 1944, Robinson was riding a military bus at Camp Hood in Waco, Texas during World War 2. Robinson was asked to move to the back of the bus by white men. He argued and fought until he arrived at his stop, in which they continued to argue with him, leading a bus dispatcher and a military policeman to join in. Robinson was then referred to as a “nigger Lieutenant” which enflamed him, causing him to say “he would break anyone in two
Theres is no secret that the blatant civil rights violations imposed on blacks in America through racial segregation laws served as an injustice to all American citizens in the mid-1900s. At the heart of the segregation battle was the obvious mistreatment, both physical and emotional, bestowed onto African Americans by their white counterparts, especially in the South. After decades of harsh mistreatment, African American leaders sought out to challenge, and ultimately change, the laws and legislation drafted by their government centuries before those men and women existed. Though peaceful protests were a common method of action blacks chose to partake in, many of these individuals were met commonly with acts of violence from angry southerners
Many people in the United States have either experienced or witnessed some form of discrimination in their lifetimes, and one person, in particular, was Brent Staples, an African-American man who lived in New York during the mid-1970’s, which was not too long after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. Racial tensions in the United States were still considerably high back then, and this led to racism and discrimination towards others based on their social statuses such as race, class, and gender, and Staples himself has dealt with this issue numerous times in the past, which inspired him to write and to share his own thoughts and experiences about this controversial topic. He believed that even though black men were statistically more likely to get convicted of crimes than any other racial or minority group, it didn’t mean that all black men were violent criminals. He chose to format his writing into a personal essay for his story to have a more personal tone to it that anyone who reads it can easily relate to. The purpose of this text was to raise public awareness of the unfair discrimination in a society that Staples, along with many others, had encountered time and time again. It was written for both the general public and anyone who has also experienced discrimination to use as motivation to try to better themselves and make people realize that not all of them fit the stereotypes that society has set towards certain minority groups. In his text, Just Walk on By, Brent
Rosa Parks an African American activist who brought national attention to the bus segregation issue, by refusing to give up her seat to a white person and was arrested by the Montgomery Police. Martin Luther King Jr, a new preacher and one of the founders of the Montgomery Improvement Association a black community organization got most of the media credit. The truth was the actions of the black community caused the integration of the buses. The MIA decided that the African American riders should boycott using the Montgomery Bus Line when their proposal to be able to enter through the front and walk to the back was denied by the city. 50,000 thousand black customers for 381 days stopped using the bus line and walked to work and school. The city
In Montgomery Alabama, the theory or cruelty of “separate but equal” had ruled the city. The decree divided them in various means. For example, it required separate but equal bathrooms for the races, they couldn’t share drinking fountains, seats in movie theaters, restaurants, waiting for lines to offices, and dressing rooms in stores. The oppression was mostly visible in the city’s public transportation system. The law entitled the whites to sit in the front of the bus and the blacks in the further back. The blacks were to enter from the front pay the fees and go out and come in through the rear end of the bus. Blacks were to never cross their half even if there was no white in the front, yet when the front filled up the black people were to yield their seats to whites. Most African Americans didn’t act out, and fight for their rights when African Americans saw what was going on because they were afraid they might lose their jobs under their bosses if they showed resistance to the functions. A fifteen-year old girl named Claudette and arrested her. Some concerned black people talked to the city’s authorities, but even after they promised a change nothing was
On February 14, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama, a carpenter and schoolteacher were blessed with the birth of their little girl. This little girl would grow to be a profound woman who students read about in their history books for ages as “The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”.