Who refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery in 1955?

What happened

Under Montgomery’s segregation laws, Black passengers had to sit at the back of the bus and give up their seats to white riders when the front filled. When driver James Blake ordered Parks and three others to move, she stayed seated. She was arrested and fined.

Parks later said she wasn’t simply tired from work, as often claimed: “The only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” She was already active in the NAACP, serving as secretary of its Montgomery branch.

The bus boycott

1. December 5, 1955Black residents begin boycotting city buses; Martin Luther King Jr. is chosen to lead the protest
2. 1956People walk, carpool and use Black-owned taxis for months, despite threats and arrests
3. June 1956A federal court rules bus segregation unconstitutional in Browder v. Gayle
4. November 1956The US Supreme Court upholds the ruling
5. December 21, 1956Montgomery’s buses are desegregated, ending the 381-day boycott

She wasn’t the first

Months earlier, in March 1955, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested in Montgomery for the same act. Colvin was also one of the plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle. Leaders felt Parks, a respected adult activist, would rally wider support.

Later life and honors

Parks lost her job and received threats, and moved to Detroit in 1957, where she worked for Congressman John Conyers. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1996) and the Congressional Gold Medal (1999). When she died in 2005, she became the first woman to lie in honor in the US Capitol Rotunda.

She’s often called “the mother of the civil rights movement.” For other landmark moments in US history, see who wrote the Declaration of Independence.