Why was Rosa Parks arrest significant?

Answer 1

In 1955, Rosa Parks was an African-American living in Montgomery, Alabama -- a city with laws that strictly segregated blacks and whites. On 1 December 1955, after her day of work as a seamstress at a local department store, Parks boarded a city bus. When she refused to give up her seat to a white man, the bus driver called police, and Parks was arrested and fined. The resulting bus boycott by African-Americans, led by Reverend http://www.answers.com/topic/martin-luther-king-jr, caused a national sensation. The boycott was a success and led to desegregation in Montgomery and elsewhere in the United States. Over time, Parks became a national icon of civil rights and African-American pride. Parks worked as an aide to Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Jr. from 1966 until her retirement in 1988, and she founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in 1987. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by http://www.answers.com/topic/bill-clinton in 1996.

Answer 2

Rosa Parks is important because she inspired the Birmingham Bus Boycott which lead to integrated buses in one of the most segregated cities in America.

Every American should know the story of Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks was a special influence on a large number of people at a critical time and place in American history. Her great claim to fame is that she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in 1955. For this refusal, she was arrested.

She was not the first person to be arrested for this crime, but at the time she was working as a volunteer for the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), so she was personally familiar to all of the civil rights leaders in her community. Because of her age, martial status and other demographic factors, they recognized her as the perfect symbol around which the people could rally. She was not chosen to be such a symbol before she committed her act of defiance. Her decision to break this immoral law was a spontaneous one. The boycott which followed was very carefully planned.

Rosa Parks lived in Birmingham, Alabama. At the time, this also happened to be the home of Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin Luther King, Jr. lead the boycott that followed the arrest of Rosa Parks. It laster for over a year. African American citizens refused to ride the buses of Birmingham until they were allowed to sit in the front. The bus companies needed the revenue from the African American community, but they stubbornly refused to give in for over a year!

African Americans with cars volunteered to help transport each other around the city until the boycott was lifted. It was an enormously important event.

Other enormously important events of this time period were:

The Supreme Court decision in Brown v. The Board of Education (1954) and the 1953 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Dr. Martin Luther King gave his I Have a Dream speech.

Answer 3

On 1st December, 1955, Rosa Parks, left Montgomery Fair, the department store where she worked, and got on the same bus as she did every night. As always she sat in the 'black section' at the back of the bus. When the bus became full, the driver instructed Rosa to give up her seat to a white person. She refused and was arrested by the police. She was found guilty of violating the segregation law and fined. It was only at this stage that she decided to approach the NAACP and volunteer to become a test case. Martin Luther King agreed to help organize protests against bus segregation. It was decided that from 5th December, black people in Montgomery would refuse to use the buses until passengers were completely integrated. King was arrested, but the protest continued. For thirteen months the 17,000 black people in Montgomery walked to work or obtained lifts from the small car-owing black population of the city. The loss of revenue and a decision by the Supreme Court forced the Montgomery Bus Company to accept integration, and the boycott came to an end on 20th December, 1956. After the success of this campaign, Parks became known as "The Mother Of Civil Rights Movement".

Answer 4

The Birmingham Bus Boycott of 1955 was important because of its large scale and because of its success. The African American community boycotted all Birmingham buses for over a year. This required a great deal of personal sacrifice and community organization. The success of the boycott inspired similar protests all over America.

Answer 5

Rosa Parks was arrested because she was an African American woman sitting in the front of the bus, when at that time African Americans were to give up their seats to the Whites and sit in the back of the bus.

Answer 6

Back in those days, colored people had to sit on the back of the bus and if there were no seats for the white, one would have to give up the seat. Rosa did not fill like giving up her seat and was arrested for violation of a segregation law. But, Claudette Colvin was the first person arrested for resisting bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, preceding the more publicized Rosa Parks and she was among the five women originally included in the federal court case, filed on February 1, 1956 as Browder v. Gayle, and testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case in the United States District Court. She was only 15 years old were Rosa was 42 at the time of her case. The other women were, Aurelia Browder, Mary Louise Smith and Susie McDonald. ? At the time of the occurrences on the buses, the leader of the movement didn't know that some women were being breaking the segregation laws to make their cases heard. In about 9 months later Martin Luther king jump out in the next case which was the Rosa Park's case.

Answer 7

it wasn't, many other people were doing the exact same thing

Answer 8

It was the first movement in the Civil Rights Movement.