Rosa Parks: A Difference Maker

By Alectra Rose

In February, on the 4th day, we celebrate Rosa Parks. An American Civil Rights hero, “Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her big role in the Montgomery bus boycott.” Which later lead to much greater things. 

  Called "the mother of the civil rights movement," Rosa Parks invigorated the struggle for racial equality when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955. With Parks’ being arrested it caused an uprise of the Montgomery Bus Boycott by 17,000 black citizens. 

Refusing to give up her bus seat helped spark the American civil rights movement. Her action led to a successful and peaceful protest action—the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955–1956. With this Rosa Parks became a symbol of the power of nonviolent protest.

The boycott ultimately led the U.S. Supreme Court to outlaw racial segregation on public buses in Alabama. It also spurred more non-violent protests in other cities. This later catapulted a young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., into prominence as a civil rights movement leader. Who we also take a day out of the year to celebrate. 

 My question and the reason for this article is how big of a difference did Rosa Parks truly make? Some say if Parks had yielded on that day, it would not have fixed America’s legacy of bigotry. The pent-up anger and frustration would have stayed bottled up for a day or a week longer. But it would not have dissipated, it would have erupted somewhere else. Others say if not for Rosa Parks, someone else would have come along and done the same thing. 

  Rosa Parks needed to refuse when she did cause it helped cause a rise to the American Civil Rights Movement. The American civil rights movement started in the mid-1950s. “A major catalyst in the push for civil rights was in December 1955, when NAACP activist Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man.” News article https://www.britannica.com/event/American-civil-rights-movement says. If Rosa Parks had not refused to give her seat up the American Civil Rights Movement wouldn’t have had so many supporters behind it.