Today in History- December 1st ROSA PARKS IGNITES BUS BOYCOTT: December 1, 1955 In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city's racial segregation laws. The successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, organized by a young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., followed Park's historic act of civil disobedience."The mother of the civil rights movement," as Rosa Parks is known, was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1913. She worked as a seamstress and in 1944 joined the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). According to a Montgomery city ordinance in 1955, African Americans were required to sit at the back of public buses and were also obligated to give up those seats to white riders if the front of the bus filled up. Parks was in the first row of the black section when the white driver demanded that she give up her seat to a white man. Parks' refusal was spontaneous but was not merely brought on by her tired feet, as is the popular legend. In fact, local civil rights leaders had been planning a challenge to Montgomery's racist bus laws for several months, and Parks had been privy to this discussion. Learning of Parks' arrest, the NAACP and other African American activists immediately called for a bus boycott to be held by black citizens on Monday, October 5. Word was spread by fliers, and the Montgomery Improvement Association was formed by the activists to organize the protest. The first day of the bus boycott was a great success, and that night the 26-year-old Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., told a large crowd gathered at a church, "The great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right." King emerged as the leader of the bus boycott and received numerous death threats from opponents of integration. At one point, his home was dynamited, but he and his family escaped bodily harm.The boycott stretched on for more than a year, and participants carpooled or walked miles to work and school when no other means were possible. As African Americans previously constituted 70 percent of the Montgomery bus ridership, the municipal transit system suffered gravely during the boycott. On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Alabama state and Montgomery city bus segregation laws as being in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On December 20, Montgomery's buses were desegregated and the Montgomery Bus Boycott was called off after 381 days. Rosa Parks was among the first to ride the newly desegregated buses.Martin Luther King, Jr., and his nonviolent civil rights movement had won its first great victory. There would be many more to come. ------------------------------------------------------------------ MORE GENERAL INTEREST 1824 Presidential election goes to the House 1934 Sergey Kirov murdered 1990 Tunnelers meet under English Channel historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=general&month=10272964&day=10272966 AUTOMOTIVE 1913 Ford Debuts Assembly Line historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=automotive&month=10272964&day=10272966 CIVIL WAR 1862 Lincoln's State of the Union address historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=civil&month=10272964&day=10272966 COLD WAR 1959 Antarctica made a military-free continent historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=coldwar&month=10272964&day=10272966 CRIME 1955 Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=crime&month=10272964&day=10272966 ENTERTAINMENT 1934 Benny Goodman debuts on radio historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=entertainment&month=10272964&day=10272966 LITERARY 1830 Due date for Victor Hugo historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=literary&month=10272964&day=10272966 OLD WEST 1884 Elfego Baca battles Anglo cowboys historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=oldwest&month=10272964&day=10272966 VIETNAM WAR 1971 Situation in Cambodia worsens historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=vietnamwar&month=10272964&day=10272966 WALL STREET 1995 Drug-Store Chain Chief Found Guilty historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=wallstreet&month=10272964&day=10272966 WORLD WAR II 1944 Stettinius succeeds Hull as secretary of state historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=worldwarii&month=10272964&day=10272966