Rosa Parks: The Ignition of the Civil Rights Movement

Born in 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama, Rosa Parks grew to be a seamstress in the times of extreme segregation, especially in the south. Living in Alabama, Rosa Parks was among the most extreme white supremacists in the United States. On December 1st, 1955, she refused to give up her seat in the front of the bus to a white man. In the laws of segregation surrounding this time period, she was supposed to move to the back of the bus for that white man, but she refused. She was arrested without a second thought, and although she wasn't the first black person to stand up to these unjust laws, her case ignited an almost unfathomable response. Her progression through her trial and court case, which only rose to a state level, sparked a bus protest led by Martin Luther King Jr. This was arguably the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. This year-long protest, including a lawsuit on the Montgomery buses,  Browder v. Gayle, resulted in the ruling that the buses were to be desegregated. The Civil Rights Movement only picked up steam after that, pushing forwards to gain the equality that they were so frequently denied. Rosa Parks' "federal disobedience" was the ignition that started the Civil Rights Movement in its glory.