About a hundred years after Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, many people were still not treated fairly. In some places, unfair laws kept people apart by race: in schools, at lunch counters and on buses.
Key idea
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks would not give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped lead a bus boycott and peaceful marches for equal treatment.
Why it works
The law in Montgomery said Black riders had to give up their seats when the driver told them to. Rosa Parks said no, and she was arrested. To protest, people stopped riding the buses. They walked or shared rides for more than a year. That is a boycott. In 1956 the Supreme Court said the bus law was unfair and against the Constitution. Dr. King became a leader of peaceful protests all over the country.
Common mistake
Some people say Rosa Parks was just tired that day. She said the only tired she was, was tired of giving in. She had worked for fair treatment for years.
For the grown-up: Rosa Parks worked for the NAACP in Montgomery for years before 1955. In 1963 Dr. King spoke at the March on Washington, to about 250,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial. See also Martin Luther King Jr. Day.