# data[].attributes.body
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/rosa-parks

During this time, there was a bus policy that forced whites in the front of the bus, and the blacks are in the back. The middle would be mixed, but blacks had to leave their seat if a white wanted to sit there. They also were not allowed to ask to give up seats, black or white. However, Rosa Parks rebelled against this, but this got her arrested. The arrest circulated the black community quickly. Following this, Martin Luther King Jr. decided to spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Rosa Parks' Early Life

Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913. She moved with her parents, James and Leona McCauley, to Pine Level, Alabama, at age 2 to reside with Leona's parents. Her brother, Sylvester, was born in 1915, and shortly after that her parents separated.

Did you know? When Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in 1955, it wasn't the first time she'd clashed with driver James Blake. Parks stepped onto his very crowded bus on a chilly day 12 years earlier, paid her fare at the front, then resisted the rule in place for Black people to disembark and re-enter through the back door. She stood her ground until Blake pulled her coat sleeve, enraged, to demand her cooperation. Parks left the bus rather than give in.

Rosa's mother was a teacher, and the family valued education. Rosa moved to Montgomery, Alabama, at age 11 and eventually attended high school there, a laboratory school at the Alabama State Teachers' College for Negroes. She left at 16, early in 11th grade, because she needed to care for her dying grandmother and, shortly thereafter, her chronically ill mother. In 1932, at 19, she married Raymond Parks, a self-educated man 10 years her senior who worked as a barber and was a long-time member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP). He supported Rosa in her efforts to earn her high-school diploma, which she ultimately did the following year.

Rosa Parks: Roots of Activism

Raymond and Rosa, who worked as a seamstress, became respected members of Montgomery's large African American community. Co-existing with white people in a city governed by " Jim Crow " (segregation) laws, however, was fraught with daily frustrations: Black people could attend only certain (inferior) schools, could drink only from specified water fountains and could borrow books only from the "Black" library, among other restrictions.

Although Raymond had previously discouraged her out of fear for her safety, in December 1943, Rosa also joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and became chapter secretary. She worked closely with chapter president Edgar Daniel (E.D.) Nixon. Nixon was a railroad porter known in the city as an advocate for Black people who wanted to register to vote, and also as president of the local branch of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union.

December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks Is Arrested

On Thursday, December 1, 1955, the 42-year-old Rosa Parks was commuting home from a long day of work at the Montgomery Fair department store by bus. Black residents of Montgomery often avoided municipal buses if possible because they found the Negroes-in-back policy so demeaning. Nonetheless, 70 percent or more riders on a typical day were Black, and on this day Rosa Parks was one of them.

Segregation was written into law; the front of a Montgomery bus was reserved for white citizens, and the seats behind them for Black citizens. However, it was only by custom that bus drivers had the authority to ask a Black person to give up a seat for a white rider. There were contradictory Montgomery laws on the books: One said segregation must be enforced, but another, largely ignored, said no person (white or Black) could be asked to give up a seat even if there were no other seat on the bus available.

Nonetheless, at one point on the route, a white man had no seat because all the seats in the designated "white" section were taken. So the driver told the riders in the four seats of the first row of the "colored" section to stand, in effect adding another row to the "white" section. The three others obeyed. Parks did not.

"People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired," wrote Parks in her autobiography, "but that isn't true. I was not tired physically... No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

Eventually, two police officers approached the stopped bus, assessed the situation and placed Parks in custody.

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Although Parks used her one phone call to contact her husband, word of her arrest had spread quickly and E.D. Nixon was there when Parks was released on bail later that evening. Nixon had hoped for years to find a courageous Black person of unquestioned honesty and integrity to become the plaintiff in a case that might become the test of the validity of segregation laws. Sitting in Parks' home, Nixon convinced Parks-and her husband and mother-that Parks was that plaintiff. Another idea arose as well: The Black population of Montgomery would boycott the buses on the day of Parks' trial, Monday, December 5. By midnight, 35,000 flyers were being mimeographed to be sent home with Black schoolchildren, informing their parents of the planned boycott.

On December 5, Parks was found guilty of violating segregation laws, given a suspended sentence and fined $10 plus $4 in court costs. Meanwhile, Black participation in the boycott was much larger than even optimists in the community had anticipated. Nixon and some ministers decided to take advantage of the momentum, forming the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to manage the boycott, and they elected Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.-new to Montgomery and just 26 years old-as the MIA's president.

As appeals and related lawsuits wended their way through the courts, all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Montgomery Bus Boycott engendered anger in much of Montgomery's white population as well as some violence, and Nixon's and Dr. King's homes were bombed. The violence didn't deter the boycotters or their leaders, however, and the drama in Montgomery continued to gain attention from the national and international press.

On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional; the boycott ended December 20, a day after the Court's written order arrived in Montgomery. Parks-who had lost her job and experienced harassment all year-became known as "the mother of the civil rights movement."

Rosa Parks's Life After the Boycott

Facing continued harassment and threats in the wake of the boycott, Parks, along with her husband and mother, eventually decided to move to Detroit, where Parks' brother resided. Parks became an administrative aide in the Detroit office of Congressman John Conyers Jr. in 1965, a post she held until her 1988 retirement. Her husband, brother and mother all died of cancer between 1977 and 1979. In 1987, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, to serve Detroit's youth.

In the years following her retirement, she traveled to lend her support to civil-rights events and causes and wrote an autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story. In 1999, Parks was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor the United States bestows on a civilian. (Other recipients have included George Washington, Thomas Edison, Betty Ford and Mother Teresa.) When she died at age 92 on October 24, 2005, she became the first woman in the nation's history to lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol.

HISTORY Vault: Black History

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rosa Parks: Bus Boycott, Civil Rights & Facts | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Rosa Parks (1913-2005) helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-2018/civil-rights-events-fd.html

Following the arrest of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. had blacks avoid using public buses. In 1956 of June, it was ruled by a federal court that bus segregation was unconstitutional. This was one of the early acts of the Civil Rights Movement.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-2018/civil-rights-events-fd.html

The Albany Movement was a protest which brought together a many groups. MLK wanted to be a part of it, but he was in jail. He chose to be in jail to get the movement along, but a year passed and nothing changed, and the movement soon died out.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-2018/civil-rights-events-fd.html

African American residents were facing financial issues, so they initiated another boycotting act. They would avoid companies that had better maintenance for whites. They would also commit non-violent crimes to flood jails. This act was a success when there was a huge reduction in segregation.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-2018/civil-rights-events-fd.html

Around 200,000 to 300,000 participants were present. It was just another basic protest for freedom.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-2018/civil-rights-events-fd.html

John Lewis led 600 protestors on Highway 80 to Montgomery. It came out as another violent protest, with police getting involved.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-2018/civil-rights-events-fd.html

The Chicago Freedom Movement was a mix of marches, boycotts, and protests. King led a march through a white neighborhood. Some of the participants were injured, including King. Following this event, the Fair Housing Act was passed, giving the same house privileges to all races.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-2018/civil-rights-events-fd.html

The Vietnam War was happening at the time, and MLK had his position of being against the war. He went as far as giving the "Beyond Vietnam" speech.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-2018/civil-rights-events-fd.html

The campaign was to gain economic and human rights. It was made of people of different races. Not just blacks and whites, but Asians, Hispanics, and Native Americans were involved as well. A march was to be led by MLK, but his assassination unfortunately prevented it from happening.

# data[].attributes.headline
Martin Luther King Jr. assassination, 1968

# data[].attributes.subject
Martin Luther King Jr. assassination, 1968

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr-assassination

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. happened on April 4, 1968. He stood on a balcony in Lorraine Motel, and a bullet went through his neck. The killer turned out to be James Earl Ray. However, his legacy was continued by the Black Panther Party.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Table of Contents

1. King Assassination: Background

2. Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

3. King Assassination Conspiracy

4. Impact of the King Assassination

Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, an event that sent shock waves reverberating around the world. A Baptist minister and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s, using a combination of impassioned speeches and nonviolent protests to fight segregation and achieve significant civil rights advances for African Americans. His assassination led to an outpouring of anger among Black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning that helped speed the way for an equal housing bill that would be the last significant legislative achievement of the civil rights era.

King Assassination: Background

In the last years of his life, Dr. King faced mounting criticism from young African American activists who favored a more confrontational approach to seeking change. These young radicals stuck closer to the ideals of the Black nationalist leader Malcolm X ( himself assassinated in 1965), who had condemned King's advocacy of nonviolence as "criminal" in the face of the continuing repression suffered by African Americans.

As a result of this opposition, King sought to widen his appeal beyond his own race, speaking out publicly against the Vietnam War and working to form a coalition of poor Americans-Black and white alike-to address such issues as poverty and unemployment.

Did you know? Among the witnesses at King's assassination was Jesse Jackson, one of his closest aides. Ordained as a minister soon after King's death, Jackson went on to form Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) and to run twice for U.S. president, in 1984 and 1988.

In the spring of 1968, while preparing for a planned march to Washington to lobby Congress on behalf of the poor, King and other SCLC members were called to Memphis, Tennessee, to support a sanitation workers' strike. On the night of April 3, King gave a speech at the Mason Temple Church in Memphis.

In his speech, King seemed to foreshadow his own untimely passing, or at least to strike a particularly reflective note, ending with these now-historic words: "I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

In fact, King had already survived an assassination attempt in the shoe section of a Harlem department store on September 20, 1958. The incident only affirmed his belief in non-violence.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

At 6:05 p.m. the following day, King was standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where he and his associates were staying, when a sniper's bullet struck him in the neck. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later, at the age of 39.

Shock and distress over the news of King's death sparked rioting in more than 100 cities around the country, including burning and looting. Amid a wave of national mourning, President Lyndon B. Johnson urged Americans to "reject the blind violence" that had killed King, whom he called the "apostle of nonviolence."

He also called on Congress to speedily pass the civil rights legislation then entering the House of Representatives for debate, calling it a fitting legacy to King and his life's work. On April 11, Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act, a major piece of civil rights legislation that prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin or sex. It is considered an important follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

King Assassination Conspiracy

On June 8, authorities apprehended the suspect in King's murder, a small-time criminal named James Earl Ray, at London's Heathrow Airport. Witnesses had seen him running from a boarding house near the Lorraine Motel carrying a bundle; prosecutors said he fired the fatal bullet from a bathroom in that building. Authorities found Ray's fingerprints on the rifle used to kill King, a scope and a pair of binoculars.

On March 10, 1969, Ray pleaded guilty to King's murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. No testimony was heard in his trial. Shortly afterwards, however, Ray recanted his confession, claiming he was the victim of a conspiracy. The House Select Committee on Assassinations (who also investigated the assassination of JFK) maintained that Ray's shot killed king.

Ray later found sympathy in an unlikely place: Members of King's family, including his son Dexter, who publicly met with Ray in 1977 and began arguing for a reopening of his case. Though the U.S. government conducted several investigations into the trial-each time confirming Ray's guilt as the sole assassin-controversy still surrounds the assassination.

At the time of Ray's death in 1998, King's widow Coretta Scott King (who in the weeks after her husband's death had courageously continued the campaign to aid the striking Memphis sanitation workers and carried on his mission of social change through nonviolent means) publicly lamented that "America will never have the benefit of Mr. Ray's trial, which would have produced new revelations about the assassination...as well as establish the facts concerning Mr. Ray's innocence."

Impact of the King Assassination

Though Black and white people alike mourned King's passing, the killing in some ways served to widen the rift between Black and white Americans, as many Black people saw King's assassination as a rejection of their vigorous pursuit of equality through the nonviolent resistance he had championed.

His murder, like the killing of Malcolm X in 1965, radicalized many moderate African American activists, fueling the growth of the Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

King has remained the most widely known African American leader of his era, and the most public face of the civil rights movement, along with its most eloquent voice.

A campaign to establish a national holiday in his honor began almost immediately after his death, and its proponents overcame significant opposition-critics pointed to FBI surveillance files suggesting King's adultery and his influence by Communists-before President Ronald Reagan signed the King holiday bill into law in 1983.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination - Facts, Reaction & Impact | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Baptist minister and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968. His murder led to an outpouring of anger among Black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning that helped speed the way for lasting civil rights legislation.