“Rosa Parks was arrested because she refused to give up her bus seat for a white man.  Public buses were segregated then, reserving seats in the front and middle of the vehicles only for whites.

The African American community in Montgomery was able to respond so quickly to the arrest of Rosa Parks because it was written of in the newspaper.  The newspapers were then delivered across the country, allowing all people to read her story.

Before the boycott, two out of every three bus passengers were black.  Afterwards, there were almost none on the segregated buses.  Transportation earned nowhere near as much money with so many of their past passengers no longer riding the buses.

The boycott was successful because it lasted for eleven months, which such a large percentage of passengers participating in it.  It ended with the Supreme Court ruling that segregated buses were unconstitutional.

The Women’s Political Council and other Black leaders were involved with the boycott when they were alerted of the arrest of Rosa Parks.  Martin Luther King Jr. became the leader of the boycott, but it was organized by the Montgomery Improvement Association.”

Copyrighted and submitted by a DayInBlackHistory.com contributor (T.O.).