Rosa Parks knew the segregation laws and bigotry toward blacks were unjust and unfair. When she grew up, she worked as a tailor and seamstress.
In her free time, she was the secretary for the Montgomery, Alabama, chapter of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP was founded to 1909, and at the time the word “colored” was a term commonly used for black people. Chapters of the NAACP all around the country worked to gain rights for black people and fight discrimination. In an interview with Ebony magazine, Rosa Parks said she and the NAACP worked “to challenge the powers that be, and to let it be known that we did not wish to continue being second-class citizens.”
As part of her work with the NAACP, Rosa Parks went for training at the Highlander School in Tennessee. The Highlander School was a place where people believed in integration, not segregation. Blacks and whites could get together and talk about issues. There were workshops on teaching people to become community leaders. “It was one of the few times in my life up to that point when I did not feel any hostility from white people,” Parks said later. “I experienced people of different races and backgrounds meeting together … and living together in peace and harmony. I felt that I could express myself honestly without any repercussions or antagonistic attitudes from other people.”
It was about six months after her experience at the Highlander School that Rosa Parks decided that she had had enough of segregation on public transportation in Montgomery.

▲ This is the bus on which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in 1955. It is now part of a museum exhibit.
Rosa Parks wasn’t planning to change the course of history when she got on the bus on December 1, 1955. But she did know the driver. He was unpleasant and mean. Several years before, he had thrown her off the bus because she refused to enter from the backdoor. Why shouldn’t she enter in the front like white people did? If she had noticed who was driving before paying the fare, she would not have gotten on.
The law said that white and black riders on the bus had to sit in separate sections. The whites sat in the front, and the blacks in the back. They weren’t even allowed to share the same row. Bus drivers often pushed black riders around. If the white section was full and any white people were standing, the driver made the first row of black riders stand and move to the back of the bus. They had to give up their seats for the white riders.
When Rosa Parks got on the bus, she sat down in the very front of the black section. The white section was full. When a few new white passengers got on, the bus driver ordered everyone in Rosa Park’s row to get up. The other passengers in her row reluctantly stood. But Rosa Parks didn’t move. She felt a powerful sense of determination. When the bus driver asked her why she wasn’t getting up, Rosa said she didn’t think she should have to. He threatened to call the police. Rosa Parks said, “You may do that.”

As Rosa Parks waited for the police, she thought about what might happen. Sometimes the police treated blacks harshly. Was she scared? A little. But she kept sitting. She told a radio reporter, “I don’t know why I wasn’t, but I didn’t feel afraid. I had decided that I would have to know once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen, even in Montgomery, Alabama.”
The police came and arrested Rosa Parks. Despite the indignity of the arrest itself, she was treated respectfully by the officers. When Rosa Parks was released on bail the same night, the local NAACP quickly went into action. They started calling everyone they knew and printed up flyers. They wanted to organize a major protest against segregation. The plan was to boycott the Montgomery city bus system and demand equal treatment under the law. This was a big deal, because 50,000 black residents of Montgomery rode the bus to get to work every day. Would they be willing to take a stand? Would they be willing to face what could be violent reaction? If the response to the boycott was harsh, how would they deal with it?
A meeting was held at the church of a young preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr. When Rosa Parks was introduced to the crowd, everyone stood up and cheered. Although Martin Luther King, Jr., had lived in Montgomery for only a short time, he was elected the leader of the boycott.

▲ Martin Luther King Jr. Outlines Boycott Plans, with Rosa Parks sitting in the front row.
Rosa Parks said, “Being the minority, we felt that nothing could be gained by violence or threats or belligerent attitude. We believed that more could be accomplished through the nonviolent passive resistance, and people just began to decide that they wouldn’t ride the bus on the day of my trial, which was on Monday, December 5.”
Instead of riding the bus, Montgomery’s black citizens walked to work and organized car pools. Blacks were three-quarters of the riders, and when they stopped using the buses, the bus system lost a lot of money. The white politicians in Montgomery tried to disrupt the boycott. Martin Luther King’s home was bombed. Rosa Parks and her husband lost their jobs and received death threats. Rosa Parks, King, and 90 other people were arrested for “conspiring” to boycott a business in violation of an obscure Alabama law. But the boycott kept going and actually gained momentum. After Martin Luther King, Jr., was arrested he said, “This will not mar or diminish in any way my interest in the protest. We will continue to protest in the same spirit of nonviolence and passive resistance, using the weapon of love.”
The Montgomery bus boycott lasted for 381 days.
Although the resistance to the boycott was strong, Rosa Parks never got discouraged. The fact that all the blacks in Montgomery were standing together for civil rights—and that the national media was finally paying attention to the injustice of segregation made her feel light-hearted.
While the boycott was going on, lawyers for the NAACP started a court case, arguing that the segregation on buses violated the 14thAmendment of the Constitution. The lawsuit went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In November 1956, the Supreme Court declared segregation on public buses illegal. The boycott went on until December 20, 1956 when the court’s ruling was enforced. On December 21, 1956, Rosa Parks boarded an integrated bus for the first time.
Rosa Parks worked for equality and fought against racial discrimination for the rest of her life. When she retired, she wrote an autobiography in 1992 called My Story, and she talked about the struggles and progress made since the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She also wrote that she was sad that there was still racism and racial violence. “We still have a long way to go,” she wrote.
Rosa Parks passed away at the age of 92 in 2005.