[Wordly L6] 2. The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement - Yujun

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Many people believe that the Civil Rights Movement in America began on December 1, 1955. On that date, an African American woman named Rosa Parks refused to vacate her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus so that a white person could sit there. At the time, locallaws unjustly allowed African Americans to be treated as second-class citizens. Many hotels, restaurants, and even drinking fountains throughout the South were for whites only. And in Montgomery, the state capital of Alabama, as elsewhere throughout the South, city buses were segregated. The front ten seats were set aside for whites; African American passengers had to ride in the back.

Rosa Parks found it degrading to have to sit in the "colored" section of the bus. For that reason, she usually walked home from her job in a Montgomery department store. But on that winter evening, Parks was feeling tired and decided to take the bus home. Soon all ten seats in the front of the bus were occupied by white people. When another white man got on, the driver told Parks and three others to give up their seats so that he could extend the "whites only" section.The three others gave up their seats, but Parks refused to move. The driver called the police, who took her into custody.

Parks was detained at the p이 ice station for three hours. When she was released, she was ordered to appear in court four days later. There she was found guilty and fined ten dollars. Her lawyers appealed the verdict, and the case slowly began making its way through the courts.

Meanwhile, the battle for civil rights was also being fought in the streets of Montgomery. African American people boycotted the city's buses. This resulted in heavy losses to the company. An African American minister from Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., found himself suddenly thrust into a position of leadership. Many white citizens felt that the boycotters were being arrogant in demanding equal treatment under the law. There were numerous outbreaks of violence. However, Dr. King preached a message of nonviolence. He urged his supporters never to use force even if they were attacked. The country was moved by his eloquence; they could no longer ignore the racial injustice that had been previously taken for granted.The campaign lasted 381 days.lt ended on December 20, 1956, when the United States Supreme Court made a historic ruling. The court agreed with a lower court ruling that the Montgomery law violated the United States Constitution. The nation's highest court ordered the bus company to integrate its buses. In doing so, it sent a powerful message: African American people could no longer be treated as second-class citizens.

It was clear that the movement sparked by Rosa Parks had triumphed when Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This law opened up public housing, schools, and employment to people of all races. In 1989, Parks was invited to attend ceremonies at the White House marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of its passage. In 2002, her former home in Montgomery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Rosa Parks died in 2005, but she will always be remembered as the mother of the Civil Rights Movement.