Detroit, Michigan – On December 1st of 1955, a young lady known as Rosa Parks was not thinking about leaving a stamp in time; all she wanted was to keep her seat on the bus.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005 marks the death of Rosa Parks. Parks was an active member in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and in the Voter Registration movement.
Parks was on her way home from work, sat in the front of the black section of the bus, and refused to give her seat to a white man, despite the fact that the other three people in her seat had moved. Parks was inevitably arrested; thus began the year and sixteen days long protest.
On December 5th Parks was convicted of disorderly conduct and was fined $14. The same day that Martin Luther King Jr. was named the leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association.
Two thirds of the Montgomery transit bus-riders composed of Black people who, due to the boycott refused to use the transit system. They carpooled, used taxis, walked, or rode bicycles to get where they needed to go.
On November 13, 1956, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Montgomery’s segregation of the transit system was unconstitutional.
In 1999 Rosa Parks was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor that Congress can award.