College Essay on Rosa Parks
There are people whose role in the history of the mankind cannot be underestimated. There are people to whom we are grateful for the way the world we live in looks like. One of those people is Rosa Parks. She is notable for an action which led to the racial equality nowadays. This action seems ordinary nowadays, but at that time, in 1955, it was an act of disobedience to the laws of that time, that were unfair from her point of view. It all happened on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama. At that time, the first four seats were reserved for white people, and when they were all occupied, a black person from the seats behind the first four had to give up their seat to a white passenger. What Rosa Parks did was to refuse to give up her seat to a white man saying she thought she was not obliged to do that. As a result, she was arrested afterwards.
Actually, this was not the first incident of this kind. But this was the first one that received much publicity.
Rosa Parks was soon bailed out of prison, but she convinced herself that this was the last time she would be humiliated in the public transport. Her friend Edgar Nixon, the president of Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, decided to use this situation to start a bus boycott in Montgomery. The aim was to abolish segregation laws at least in the public transport in Montgomery. The boycott lasted for 381 days, and in 1956 the Supreme Court deemed that the segregation on the public transport was unconstitutional.
Rosa Parks is regarded to be the “Mother of Civil Rights Movement.” However she feels a little bit modest about it: “Four decades later I am still uncomfortable with the credit given to me for starting the bus boycott. I would like (people) to know I was not the only person involved. I was just one of many who fought for freedom.” (History Learning Site)
A lot of people were fighting for equal rights in the USA at that time. However it was Rosa Parks who had become a popular figure, the one who inspired the following actions that are now called the Civil Rights Movement. Actually, Martin Luther King was a baptist pastor at that time, but after he found out about Rosa’s brave action, he became one of the leaders of Montgomery Bus Boycott. Now we know Martin Luther King for his contribution to the establishing of the race equality in the USA, as well as throughout the world, his famous speech titled “I have a dream” is cited as one of the best speeches that call for racial equality. We don’t want to underestimate the role of people like Martin Luther King or Ella Baker.
But it was actually Rosa Parks who was courageous enough to be the first one to rise in rebellion against inequality.
Works Cited
“Rosa Parks”. HistoryLearningSite.co.uk. 2014. Web.
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