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Rosa Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She is considered to be “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement”. She was born in Alabama on February 4, 1913, and died on October 24, 2005, at the age of 92. Martin Luther King was also part of the Montgomery Bus Boycott with Rosa Parks.
King was an American Baptist minister and an activist that lived from January 15, 1929, until April 4, 1968. He was the leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 until his assassination. He was born in Atlanta and was best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was initiated since Rosa Parks refused James F Blake’s order to give up her seat to a white person because all the whites-only section was filled.
I learned that Rosa Parks acted as a private citizen “tired of giving in”. On the other hand, she also suffered for her act; she was fired from her job as a seamstress in a local department store and received death threats for years afterward. She also moved to Detroit where she found similar work. I never knew that around Park’s final years, she suffered from dementia. I learned that King’s assassin was supposed to serve 99 years in prison but only served 29 years of his sentence because he died from hepatitis in 1998 while in prison.
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The reason I feel that we aren’t taught about Parks and King and the movement they created is that they don’t want the minority to feel motivated with civil disobedience. They will only be showing the world the answer to solving the segregation problem. If we all were to unite and go against it just how Parks and King did, we wouldn’t be in today’s situation.
Many people aren’t brave to stand out for themselves but when they see people stand out for others they get an urge of motivation because people can be influenced by actions. Rosa Parks and MLK can be an inspiration to a bigger movement but by not teaching us about them, they are only distorting the reality of our lives.
Was I taught differently from the facts I uncovered
I wouldn’t say I was taught differently, more like I wasn’t taught enough. I feel like I wasn’t taught enough because there are many new things I barely found out about King and Parks. At the same time, I feel like I was taught toward this subject on a biased perspective so that also was a reason why the information was distorted about such important people.
My feeling for them not teaching enough about people like MLK and Rosa Parks is that they did what they did so that our lives today won’t be as suffering as theirs before. They tend to manipulate you with what they teach you. What I’m trying to say is that; they teach you that they both made a huge impact on their society because of the amount of segregation that was going on at that time, so people tend to compare their lives now to before but since they have seen a change they are satisfied with so instead of reinforcing the changes, they accept the changes that have been made because it’s ENOUGH of a difference to them. That’s when people need to know to settle for the best not just better. With that being said, MLK and Rosa Parks started a move toward better for us to keep making it better, not just give up now. We are still allowing forms of slavery to happen.
The purpose of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride the city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. This Boycott lasted from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is known as the first large scale U.S. demonstration against segregation. Four days before the beginning of the Boycott, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat so she was arrested and fined. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system, and one of the leaders of the boycott, a young pastor named Martin Luther King Jr.
The outcome
On June 5th of 1956, a Montgomery federal court ruled that any law requiring racially segregated seating on buses violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That Amendment, adopted in 1868 following the U.S. Civil War, guarantees all citizens- regardless of race- equal rights and equal protection under state and federal laws.
Montgomery maintained segregated bus stops. Four black churches and the home of prominent black leaders were bombed. A bomb was found and defused at King’s house. Following that, seven bombers were arrested and they were all members of the Ku Klux Klan. this arrest brought an end to the bus violence going on. I feel that they waited too long to make the changes because they waited for all the suffering to go by until they noticed a change needed to be made. Changes should be before the chaos not once the chaos is created to prevent any creation of riots or anything like that.
What outcome would I have wanted to see and why
I would have wanted for King to live his life up to today’s date so that he can see he has made a huge impact on this world and that he is also appreciated for his heroic movements. I would have wanted Parks to see the difference she has made herself.
Emmett Till
Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old boy, had been brutally murdered and his body thrown in the Tallahatchie River, but despite clear evidence that two white men committed the crime, an all-white jury returned a “Not Guilty” verdict after just an hour of deliberations.
The reaction to the court verdict
One reaction toward the court’s verdict was Park’s reaction. She wrote, “the news of Emmett’s death caused me… to participate in the cry for justice and equal rights.” The jury’s verdict provoked both angry editorials and calls for federal legislation to protect the civil rights of black Americans. Protest rallies, drawing thousands in some cases, were held in several cities. In the south, the verdict seemed to spell the end to the system of “noblesse oblige,” and marked the real beginning of the civil rights movements in that part of the country.
They reached that verdict because they were all racist and I’m sure they felt like it was okay to do things like that to African Americans. They chose the white people’s side which was the guilty side but they didn’t care what was right and what was wrong because they were so unfair to the African Americans. I would have been triggered by this because no one deserved that, especially not a young boy like him. All he did was shoot his shot at the girl and he doesn’t only get denied but also brutally murdered. In no way is that fair for him or his family.
Parks says how she felt motivated to get involved in the cry for justice and equal rights. She compares his death case to many other brutal death cases she knew.
The custom, Parks noted, about killings such as Till’s was “to keep things covered up.” She speaks on him saying no one deserves what happened to Emmett Till and to ensure there would be no more Emmett Till, she refused to move to the back of the bus. The body of the young boy served as a rallying cry for African Americans who joined the civil rights movement.
To begin with, Emmett Till seemed to be such a confident brave youngster. Although his decision created consequences for him, I don’t believe his life deserved to be taken away. I would tell the jury how unfair their decision was and how their decision was made due to the race of the side they had chosen.
We can all say how racist the jury was because they chose to let 2 criminals be considered “Not Guilty” just because they were two white guys. vi. How would you react if this happened in your town? If this were to have happened in my town, this would start riots because my community is majority African-Americans. Although they have created some kind of scarred moment toward our people, I would encourage the black community to not act on impulse because we will only add more negativity to the situation. You might ask yourself “how can you stay so calm in such a situation?” but it’s all about keeping your head together and not proving the people against you right.
It helped me recover the truth of the unfair behavior of the white people with the black ones and described the people’s loss of their identity. It made me realize how Margaret wasn’t being treated the way she should be treated. She wanted to at least go by her name because “Mary” didn’t make her feel like herself. In her perspective, she wanted to be herself, and that’s why she hated the name.
Miss Glory in the other adapted to her new name “Miss Glory”, and preferred that name over Hallelujah. She, Parks noted, about killings such as Till’s was “to keep things covered up.” She speaks on him saying no one deserves what happened to Emmett Till and to ensure there would be no more Emmett Till, she refused to move to the back of the bus. The body of the young boy served as a rallying cry for African Americans who joined the civil rights movement.
Would I say to the jury and the people responsible for his death
To begin with, Emmett Till seemed to be such a confident brave youngster. Although his decision created consequences for him, I don’t believe his life deserved to be taken away. I would tell the jury how unfair their decision was and how their decision was made due to the race of the side they had chosen. We can all say how racist the jury was because they chose to let 2 criminals be considered “Not Guilty” just because they were two white guys.
If this were to have happened in my town, this would start riots because my community is majority African-Americans. Although they have created some kind of scarred moment toward our people, I would encourage the black community to not act on impulse because we will only add more negativity to the situation. You might ask yourself “how can you stay so calm in such a situation?” but it’s all about keeping your head together and not proving the people against you right.
It helped me recover the truth of the unfair behavior of the white people with the black ones and described the people’s loss of their identity. It made me realize how Margaret wasn’t being treated the way she should be treated. She wanted to at least go by her name because “Mary” didn’t make her feel like herself. In her perspective, she wanted to be herself, and that’s why she hated the name. Miss Glory in the other adapted to her new name “Miss Glory”, and preferred that name over Hallelujah.
