The black community had shown spurts of enthusiasm in pursuing civil rights since the end of slavery. By the 1950s, however, the latest interest in the Civil Rights movement had lost a good deal of steam. Many African Americans seemed resigned to accepting the Jim Crow laws and living within the existing system. Educated blacks in Alabama were looking for something to rekindle the interest in Civil Rights amongst the black community. They found that "something" in a woman named Rosa Parks.
On a December day in 1955, Parks boarded a full Montgomery, Alabama bus, tired after a long day's work. She sat at the back of the bus's white section. When a white person boarded, the bus driver ordered Parks and several other black riders to move, and she refused. Her subsequent arrest mobilized the African-American community into a yearlong bus boycott that ultimately ended segregation on public transportation. Parks was an educated woman who was concerned about the plight of Southern blacks. Although she did not board the bus intending to take a stand, when the opportunity arose, she accepted the challenge.
When the Supreme Court overturned Alabama's segregation laws regarding public transportation, the Civil Rights movement gained momentum. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Montgomery, Alabama minister, rose as the recognized leader of the movement. Several women worked behind the scenes organizing the boycott and keeping the movement alive.
