Just stay seated to start a revolution. This is what happened in 1955 to Rosa Parks.
In the mid-1900s, in Alabama, people of color did not have the same rights as Whites. In some clubs and shops, only Whites were allowed to enter. In buses, there was a part reserved for Whites and a part reserved for Blacks. If there were too many Whites, black people had to get up and leave their room to the Whites.
On December 1, 1955, a black seamstress named Rosa Parks, was returning from work by bus in Montgomery, Alabama. At one stop a white man got on the bus and the driver told Rosa to give him her seat. Something extraordinary happened: she firmly and calmly refused to move. Several black people pleaded for her to get up, fearing she would be arrested, but she didn’t move.
The driver called the police, who arrested her for violating city regulations.
The next day a protest of black people began, which consisted of no longer taking public transport. The boycott lasted for 381 days. Since most of the people who used public transport were black, many drivers lost their jobs and the transport company was in danger of bankruptcy.
In 1956 the Supreme Court abolished racial segregation on means of transport. The battle had been won.
And Rosa Parks?
She was freed almost immediately by a lawyer and by Martin Luther King, but she was sentenced to pay a fine. Due to the continuing threats that followed, she was forced to move to Detroit, Michigan.
Only in 1999 was she awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
She died on October 24, 2005, but she remains an icon of the civil rights movement.
Her story still reminds us today that to face injustices sometimes it is enough to be firm in small gestures, like remaining seated.
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