Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks is the starting point of the big movement which fought against segregation in the United States of America. In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man in a city bus in Montgomery. At that time, Blacks had to respect the Jim Crow Laws, which means that they were not allowed to mix with Whites in public places and were sent to sepArate schools, swimming-pools, restaurants, drinking fountains, etc.. They were also required to sit at the back of city buses and give up their seats to white riders if the front seats had filled up. For the crime of refusing to give up her seat, Rosa Parks was arrested.

When I got off from work that evening of December 1, I went to Court Square as usual to catch the Cleveland Avenue bus home. I did not look to see who was driving when I got on, and by the time I recognized him, I had already paid my fare. It was the same driver who had put me off the bus back in 1934, twelve years earlier. He was still tall and heavy, with red, rough-looking skin. And he was still mean-looking. I didn’t know if he had been on that route before-they switched the drivers around sometimes. I do know that most of the time if I saw him on a bus, I wouldn’t get on it.

I saw a vacant seat in the middle section of the bus and took it. I didn’t even question why there was a vacant seat even though there were quite a few people standing in the back. If I had thought about it at all, I would probably have figured maybe someone saw me get on and did not take the seat but left it vacant for me.There was a man sitting next to the window and two women across the aisle.

The next stop was the Empire Theater, and some whites got on.They filled up the white seats, and one man was left standing. The driver looked back and noticed the man standing. Then he looked back at us. He said “Let me have those front seats,” because they were the front seats of the black section. Didn’t anybody move. We just sat right where we were, the four of us. Then he spoke a second time: “Y’all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats.”

The man in the window seat next to me stood up, and I moved tol et him pass by me, and then I looked across the aisle and saw that the two women were also standing. I moved over to the window seat. I couldn’t see how standing up was going to “make it light” for me. The more we gave in and complied, the worse they treated us.

I thought back to the time when I used to sit up all night and didn’t sleep, and my grandfather would have his gun right by the fireplace, or if he had his one-horse wagon going anywhere, he always had his gun in the back of the wagon. People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true.I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then.

I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.

The driver of the bus saw me still sitting there, and he asked was I going to stand up.

I said, “No.” He said, “Well, I am going to have you arrested.” Then I said, “You may do that.” These were the only words we said to each other. I didn’t know even his name, which was James Blake, until we were

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