5 Things History Books Didn't Tell Us About Rosa Parks' Famous Arrest
December 1 marks the day Rosa Parks famously refused to move to the back of the bus, launching the Montgomery Bus Boycott. But here's what you probably didn't know.
Rosa Parks is one of the Holy Trinity Black leaders widely celebrated during Black History Month (arguably her, Martin Luther King Jr., and Harriet Tubman). We think we all know their stories. Even though public schools select a few “safe” Black folks for us to learn about, we rarely get the details.
On this day, December 1, in 1955, Rosa Parks famously refused to move to the back of a Montgomery bus. This strategic gesture set off the 13-month Montgomery Bus Boycott, a mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional.
But there’s more to know about what led to this moment– and the history after Ms. Parks helped launch a movement.
01
Montgomery’s Mary Fair Burks began planning for a boycott years before 1955
Montgomery’s 1955 bus boycott started so quickly because the ground work was already laid by a group of Black women who formed the Women’s Political Council (WPC). Mary Fair Burks led the group, and they approached Montgomery officials about unfair bus practices in 1953. More urgency for a boycott arose after a young teenager, Claudette Colvin, refused to give up her seat in March 1955. By the time Parks was arrested in December, WPC already had fliers circulating announcing a boycott. Though the protest helped make Martin Luther King, Jr. a household name, Black women were at the forefront of the operation.
Getty
02
Rosa Parks didn’t refuse to give up her seat because she was tired…at least not physically
Parks was already seated in a “colored” section of her bus when a driver asked her to move further back to make room for a white man who wanted a seat, as all the seats in the whites-only section were full. She repeatedly refused to get up. But as Parks said, despite coming home from work, she was not physically tired.
And while she’s depicted as an older woman, she was merely 42 years old. To put that in perspective folks, Meagan Good is 41.
This is important because Rosa Parks was not passively protesting Jim Crow segregation; she was boldly and strategically defying it. As she said later, “I was not tired physically… No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”
Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
03
Rosa Parks had to flee the South after her arrest
Rosa Parks moved to Detroit two years after her the boycott started, as she lost her job as a seamstress and received death threats after her arrest.
Rosa Parks in Detroit | Getty Images
04
While in Detroit, Parks supported the Black Power Movement
As some activists shifted to more radical Black liberation movements, Parks supported them. She attended the 1968 Black Power conference with Black Panther Party leader Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Toure) and other activists. That year, she was a part of a “militant group of blacks” who refused to endorse any candidate for president.
05
Parks grew up in a household that supported Marcus Garvey and his Pan-Africanism
It’s no surprise that Parks was an ally of leaders of the Black Power movement. Before getting involved in the civil rights struggle, Parks grew up in a family that supported Marcus Garvey, a Pan-Africanist who focused on Black people building their own economic and political independence. Her grandfather was a “Garveyite” who armed himself to protect their family’s home from KKK violence.
