Short History Of... - Rosa Parks

Episode Date: October 24, 2021

By the time she died in 2005, Rosa Parks was known around the world as an icon of activism. Her act of defiance one ordinary Thursday afternoon in Montgomery, Alabama catapulted her to the forefront of the battle for racial equality in America. But what was her story before that fateful moment in 1955? What course did her life take afterward? This is a Short History of Rosa Parks. Written by Kate Simants. With thanks to Dr. Danielle McGuire, historian, and author of At the Dark End of the Street, and Kim Trent, President of the Rosa Parks Foundation. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's late summer 1943 in Montgomery, Alabama. The businesses in the city center are closing. Workers spill out onto the sidewalks, heading home in the early evening heat. A 30-year-old seamstress leaves her place of work by the back door. She's had a long day, and she's looking forward to getting home to her husband, who'll be making dinner. But first, she needs to get the bus. She hurries across the street to wait for the Cleveland Avenue service. From the bus stop, she can see the grand fountain of Court Square.

It's there, not all that long ago, that slaves were bought and sold, including, maybe, her own great-grandparents. More than 80 years have passed since the Emancipation Proclamation officially ended slavery in this country. But here, in Alabama, painful reminders of the woman's own heritage are everywhere. Not least on the boss that now pulls up. She moves with the line to board and gets her coins ready in her hand. She waits her turn, then pays her ten cent fare and moves to sit down. Except today her driver

is James F. Blake and he is not in a good mood. Blake insists that after paying, the woman needs to leave the bus and then re-enter by the back door. The woman sighs. Since 1900, a city ordinance has existed to segregate buses by race. As a black woman, she may sit in the back ten seats and only in the middle sixteen at the driver's discretion. But another rule states that she may not even walk past white people at the front. It's humiliating, degrading and pointless. So today she challenges his command. The way to the back of the bus is clear, she tells him, and there are already people standing in the rear stairwell where he wants her to board. He repeats his order, using the racial slur that she hears dozens of times every day. Then he gets up out of his seat, making

sure she sees the gun holstered at his waist. But the woman refuses to be cowed by him. She drops her purse in a deliberate attempt to duck past him, but he's twice her size, and he snatches her sleeve, pulling her towards the door. No one comes to her aid. You'd better not hit me, she tells him, as he drags her along. She may sound brave, but she's not naive. She knows better than anyone how power works. If a white person wants to assault her, there's not a thing she can do about it. Blake has a reputation amongst his passengers as a cruel man.

Sometimes he likes to add to the degradation of forcing black passengers to pay and then re-board by closing the doors and driving away before they can get back on. Other times people have been caught in the back doors and dragged several stops without so much as an apology. Today he chooses to drag this 120-pound woman along the aisle and shove her hard onto the sidewalk. He returns angrily to his seat and shuts the doors. The engine roars and the bus slides away in a cloud of dust and exhaust. The woman takes a moment to compose herself. She smooths her hair and straightens her jacket. Head high she starts the long walk home. She makes a vow to herself never to travel with that driver again.

Over the next decade, she will make this journey on foot countless times to honour that promise. Each time will be a small victory against the machinery that seeks to oppress her, that tells her the colour of her skin makes her unworthy of respect. The driver, seeing the woman disappear in his rear-view mirror, smirks to himself. Then he forgets all about her. Little does he know that in twelve years' time he and this woman will meet again. That day, unlike this one, will not be forgotten. That day will go down in history, providing the spark that changes America. It will see segregation

on the buses banned for good in this city, whether he likes it or not. And it will transform that calm, dignified, relentless woman into a legend. By the time she died in 2005, Rosa Parks was known around the world as an icon of activism. Her act of defiance on an ordinary Thursday afternoon in Montgomery, Alabama, catapulted her to the forefront of the battle for racial equality in America. The year-long boycott that followed took 40,000 people off the bus network and into the streets of Montgomery. It demonstrated the power of non-violent direct action in the US. It also signalled the emergence of arguably the most famous name in the civil rights movement,

that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parks has been called the First Lady of Civil Rights. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest possible civilian accolade, and was the first woman to lie in state on Capitol Hill. But what do we really know about Rosa Parks? What was her story before that moment in 1955, the moment that inspired a movement? What had she endured that led her to defy an everyday humiliation and say no more? This is a short history of Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks is born Rosa McCauley in Pine Level, Alabama, 1913.

From a very early age, Rosa knows that the world around her is not the same for everyone. The southern states are subject to a system of Jim Crow laws, so named after a derogatory dance routine popularized by a white performer in blackface. These laws enforce a de facto system of segregation. Dr. Danielle McGuire is a historian whose book, At the Dark End of the Street, focuses on Rosa Parks' life and work. Jim Crow was a system of laws that were designed to, in many ways, put African Americans back in a place of unfreedom. So, in short, you had a period of enslavement,

and after slavery ended, after the Civil War, there was Reconstruction. Reconstruction was actually 20 or 30 years where interracial democracy flourished in a number of states. African Americans were elected to high office, the Senate, Congress. They were sheriffs. They were coroners. They were local politicians. And it was this moment of possibility. And starting in the 1890s, they decided to start limiting Black people's ability to both be citizens and to move through the world freely. So they started passing laws in the 1890s that basically limited Black voting rights. And so purposefully written out of power. And once they couldn't vote, well, then local ordinances could pass any kind of law they want.

You can't sit here. You can't go there. This park is not for you. And that started in 1890. It developed through, you know, the early 1920s. Every single Southern state followed suit. Life in a small town like Pine Level is not easy for Black families. While Black people are no longer enslaved, without equal access to schooling, careers are limited. Rosa is only five years old when her father drifts north for work. Left with two young children, Rosa's mother moves back into her parents' small tin-roofed home. Poor as they are, though, Rosa's family know the value of education. Her single mother,

herself a college-educated teacher, works tirelessly to save money. She's determined that Rosa and her brother will stay in school, and she knows she's going to have to pay for it. While everyone's taxes go towards educating white children until the end of high school, black schools are only funded until sixth grade. For Rosa, though, it's at home that she will learn the lessons that will endure throughout her life. Her grandfather, Sylvester, was born into slavery. Well, it's interesting because her grandfather was very light-skinned, and he, of course, was the product of a sexual assault, right? And so he sometimes played on his light-skinned features, and he would talk to white people, and white people would think he was white.

And he sort of took pleasure in bucking those unspoken rules about race. She learned so much at the knee of her grandfather in particular. In many ways, I think her grandfather was kind of a political mentor for her because her grandfather was a black nationalist and he had a kind of freedom dream to relocate African-Americans back to Africa. Her introduction to racial politics is far from theoretical. is far from theoretical. 1919 is the year of the Red Summer, named for the racially motivated violence that streaks across America. Having fought shoulder to shoulder with their white counterparts, black servicemen return home from World War I hoping for respect and rights. White supremacists, however, want to give them no such thing. The backlash is fierce.

At the same time that the Ku Klux Klan was really booming in the United States, at its height in the mid-1920s, there were probably six million members in the United States of the Ku Klux Klan. So Sylvester McCauley, Rosa Parks' grandfather, would have been in that environment, in an environment of fear, right? Because the Ku Klux Klan terrorized Black families, Black communities, burned their places of worship down, took people's homes, kidnapped people, raped people. I mean, it was a terrorist organization. Well, Rosa Parks was just a little girl. So she would have learned these lessons about Black nationalism, Black pride, Black power at the

foot of her grandfather's rocking chair. And she recalls in her memoirs the nights that she stayed up with her grandfather while he would sit by the fireplace with his shotgun, protecting the house while the Ku Klux Klan marched past. And she says in one of her memoirs, she says, I wanted to see it. I wanted to see him shoot that gun. Many times, Rosa and her family go to sleep in their clothes to be ready if the Klansmen arrive. Beatings, kidnappings, and murders are rife in the area.

Thankfully her own childhood is largely free of violence. Thanks to the strong sense of pride she's learned at home, though, even as a child Rosa is defiant. One dry and dusty afternoon she walks with her mother to the store in the one-stoplight town. A white boy races towards her on roller skates and pushes her out of the way. Rosa pushes him right back. He goes sprawling into the road, hurt and furious,

while his indignant mother bustles up, demanding an apology. He doesn't get one. He pushed me, Rosa informs her, and I didn't want to be pushed. Horrified, Rosa's mother bundles her daughter away. If she keeps acting like that, her mother tells her, she'll get lynched. Rosa Parks grew up with a very clear understanding that she was not less than white people, even though the system of Jim Crow was designed to make African Americans feel like they were less than and to treat them less than and make them second class, not even citizens,

but just second class. Rosa Parks never bought into that. And that had a lot to do with her grandfather and her family structure. She's a Black radical. She was from an early age and she was until the day she died. When she's 10 years old, her beloved grandfather dies. A year later, Rosa is sent away to live with an aunt so she can stay in education. Her new school, Miss White's, is for black children, but is overseen by exclusively white teachers. Rosa's place is dependent on a scholarship. In return for her upkeep, she's required to dust and clean the schoolhouse.

She does well there and gets a reputation as a single-minded, studious girl. But the school isn't always a safe environment. Many townsfolk are outraged that such a place could exist, and the establishment is firebombed more than once Her education comes to an abrupt end in the 11th grade Her grandmother falls ill and she has to return home at 15 Like 93 out of every 100 black people at the time Rosa, despite her sharp mind, leaves without a high school diploma.

Rosa Parks ultimately came out of that very educated for her environment and her surroundings and her class level. And that allowed her to do the kind of work that in many ways kept her independent. In the late 1920s, the Great Depression hits, and Rosa has no choice but to move to the city to look for work. She's been sewing for many years, learning to make quilts with her mother and grandmother.

Work is scarce for white people. It's even worse if you're black. Businesses are closing all over the country, and Rosa can't afford to be choosy. So, knowing the risks, she does the one thing her mother had been determined she'd avoid. She takes work as a domestic for a white family in Montgomery. Much later, Rosa Parks will write about a traumatic event from around this time. Historians believe that her account could be a

scene from her own life. It's written in the first person and tells the story of a young black domestic worker. Her job is to clean the house and look after the baby of the white family who employ her. At one point in the afternoon, with the rest of the family out, she settles the child for a nap but is interrupted by a knock at the door. Another domestic, referred to simply as Sam, introduces her to a white man, who then comes inside. In her account, Parks refers to him as Mr. Charlie. It's not his real name, but a generic, derogatory term for a white man in a position of

power. She goes on to explain how Mr. Charlie propositions her. He offers a whiskey and tries to touch her, declining to accept her refusal. Forced to dodge around the furniture to get away from him, she repeatedly vehemently tells him to leave. He tries to give her money to force the issue, insisting it's already been arranged with Sam. Sam doesn't own me, she says, and I hate him as much as I hate you. The account, which was written in the 1950s and unearthed after her death, makes clear how threatened and powerless she felt. She chooses her words to their most shocking effect. I'm ready to die, it says, but give my consent, never.

Eventually Mr. Charlie understands that no means no, and leaves. But the threat of assault will galvanize her, when in a few years' time she will witness the extremes of what white men can do to black women. Soon afterward, she meets a barber by the name of Raymond Parks. He's 10 years her senior, but it's not his age that makes her uncertain. At first she was turned off because she thought he was too light-skinned. And this gives you some insight into what she might have thought about white men in particular, not impressed, right? Not interested. But then she found out he was a founding member of the Montgomery NAACP and that he carried a pistol in his pocket just in case. And then she became very interested in him. And that's where you can kind of see a relationship where their political aspirations are very similar and they feed off one another and they inspire one another.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, was formed in 1909. It remains to this day a powerful organization lobbying for an end to racial injustice. In the 1930s, though, just being a member could cost you your job, your safety, even your life. In 1932, Rosa McCauley becomes Rosa Parks, and the couple settle into married life in Montgomery. But while other newlyweds might focus on home building and raising a family, the Parkses have bigger things on their minds.

In Scottsboro, Alabama, nine black teenagers are accused of raping two white women on a Memphis-bound train. There's not a shred of evidence, but all the boys were sentenced to death. The youngest is only 12 years old. Rosa's new husband refuses to stand by and do nothing. Kim Trent is president of the Rosa Parks Scholarship Foundation. She married a man who was an activist for the Scottsboro Boys, and the Scottsboro Boys were unfairly, unjustly accused of rape. You were putting your own life in danger when you tried to protect the lives of other Black people.

And, you know, she was surrounded by people who were unafraid, which I think it's important to put that in context because there was a reason to be afraid at that time. There was a kind of bloodlust that existed, particularly in that era. I mean, there was a time when the NAACP's office in New York City would put a flag out in front of its office every day that a Black man was lynched in America because it was such a common occurrence. Parks, as we'll now call Rosa, knows that involvement with the NAACP is a risk, but it's one she's willing to take. Meetings are necessarily clandestine affairs. Their times and locations are communicated with the utmost subterfuge.

Someone will stand at a certain streetlight at a prearranged time to pass on details of the planned meeting. A particular way of tying a shoelace will mean one thing, another gesture something else. Everyone at the meets is referred to as Larry for safety's sake. Fear of reprisals is enough to keep most would-be members away, and those who attend do so with a clear understanding of recriminations. Harks will say later of these meetings, I've never seen so few men with so many guns Encouraged by her new husband

Parks returns to education to earn her high school diploma which she achieves in 1943 She gets a job as a tailor at the Montgomery Fair department store downtown and in her spare time she makes it her mission to register to vote. While black people are technically entitled to vote, their registration depends on a literacy test. And while even wholly illiterate white people

can automatically go to the polls without proving a thing, even college-educated black applicants are routinely turned down. But Parks is relentless. On her third attempt, she makes a point of copying out her answers before submitting the test as proof of her eligibility. It takes years, but finally she passes, becoming one of Montgomery's very few black voters. She's elected secretary of the Montgomery NAACP in 1943. It's here that she gets to know its chief organizer, E.D. Nixon. They become firm friends.

So here she is, connected to all the right people, all the radicals who have the ability to push Washington to do what it wants. And I think because she didn't have children and her husband was busy as a barber, when she wasn't working in the department store, her and Edie Nixon were hatching out all kinds of plans for what they wanted to do in the city. People whose cases they needed to work on and the kind of world they wanted to build together. So they were always working together. They, like I said, were neighbors. And so part of the reason why she could do this work, I think, is because she could just walk between her house and Edie Nixon's house and they could talk in the garden and she didn't have to go sit at a bunch of

meetings. They were, in many ways, I think, the heartbeat of radical Montgomery. It's now, in 1944, that Parks will become involved in a case that will shape the rest of her life. In nearby Abbeville, 25-year-old mother of one, Recy Taylor, has spent the evening at a church revival. These are big community events, with singing and praying going on until late at night. Taylor knows the dangers of being out alone after dark, so when the congregation leaves, she starts walking home with an older woman and her teenage son. A car draws up. Inside are six local men, white men, and they're armed. Taylor's friends can only watch in horror as the men force her into the car at gunpoint.

They drive her just outside town to a grove of trees and they brutally assault her. Then they stuff her back into the car and threaten to kill her if she tells anyone. And they kick her out just outside the edge of the little town of Abbeville. Reese Taylor, you know, stumbles towards home and her father was alerted that she's been kidnapped. He's out looking for her. His shirt is wet with sweat. You know, he's just desperate to find her.

And she stumbles into his arms and tells him what happened. She tells her husband what happened. And they tell the local sheriff. The local sheriff knows exactly who the guys are by the description of the car. And he could have gone and arrested them that night. But he doesn't. And a couple days go by and there's a phone call into the Montgomery branch of the NAACP. And they tell the story of what happened to Recy Taylor.

They ask for help. They've already gone to the police. The police haven't done anything. They don't expect the police to do anything. And the person on the line says, we'll send our very best investigator. That was Rosa Parks. From day one,

Parks' investigation is hindered rather than helped by the police. When she arrives in Abbeville, the deputy sheriff drives by Taylor's cabin several times before bursting in, gun drawn, ordering Parks out of town. In no uncertain terms, Taylor is told that she's on her own. One of her assailants lived on her street. So these are people that she knew, you know, and because they didn't think of Black people in general and Black women specifically as human beings, I mean, this person didn't think of her as a neighbor. She was just a body for him to abuse.

Taylor's home is firebombed while she and her toddler sleep inside and she's forced to move. Still, Parks will not be intimidated. She discovers that the sheriff who claimed to have arrested all the accused didn't issue warrants for a single one of them.

They don't even show up to the initial hearing. But the NAACP don't give up that easily. They bring enough pressure on the governor that the governor orders a private investigation. Like, okay, fine, what happened in Abbeville? He sends two private investigators to Abbeville and they start asking questions.

And the guys who raped Recy Taylor, they all admit it. They don't think they'll get in trouble because white men have been doing this with impunity. And they have no problem, you know, confessing. And so the governor orders a grand jury hearing. This is kind of a big deal. But when it goes to the all-white, all-male grand jury, it takes only minutes to throw it out. male grand jury, it takes only minutes to throw it out. To Parks' horror, Taylor's husband is at one point offered $100 from each defendant to walk away from the case. Eventually the case goes

before a second grand jury, but is thrown out just as fast. Recy Taylor's quest for justice is over. It's a devastating blow. But while Taylor is left to salvage what's left of her life, Parks refuses to let the case demoralize her completely. As she'll famously say later in her life, without courage, dreams will die. I think it's such a powerful story. It really told almost as much about Mrs. Proctor's character as the bus boycott did.

Because, I mean, it was deeply radical for a Black woman to walk up and down the roads of rural Alabama seeking justice for another Black woman who had been violated by white men. I mean, I don't think people really realized how much she was really kind of putting her own life in danger. Alabama, seeking justice for another black woman who had been violated by white men. I mean, I don't think people really realized how much she was really kind of putting her own life in danger. Parks continues her work with the NAACP, specializing in investigating cases of rape and violence against women. She also focuses her efforts on the younger generation. While she and Raymond don't have children of their own, to Parks, the children of the community are just as important as family.

In the 1940s and 50s, she combines her activism with her dedication to the church. She leads the NAACP Youth Chapter while also volunteering as deaconess and Sunday school teacher. The idea is, if you believe in a God who's just, a God who created us all to be equal, how could you then not fight against a system that treated you as if you were less than human?

And so I think that it was deeply important to the shaping of her activism and her, you know, persona as a person. I mean, I think it also kind of helped inform her calm demeanor. She was a deeply spiritual person. And I think that that is part of the reason why when we think of her, we think of her as being meek and mild, which she was not. But she also understood, I think, through her faith and kind of the role of black women in church, in the black church, the power of kind of that quiet strength. Rosa perseveres. In 1946, another wave of violence sweeps the surf. Echoing the red

summer of 1919, white supremacists are enraged that black servicemen have returned from risking their lives in the Second World War and are expecting a vote. For Montgomery the issue is particularly stark. This is a town historically steeped in Confederate sympathies. Racial tension runs high compounding the belief among many in the black community that fighting back is simply too dangerous. Parks' NAACP youth section struggles for members,

with black parents desperate to keep their children safe from the KKK. For black women in Montgomery, the situation just gets worse. Parks is involved in the case of Gertrude Perkins, kidnapped from a bus stop by two white police officers and raped at gunpoint. And then there's Viola White. Her refusal to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery bus sees her arrested and beaten with a pipe by policemen to within an inch of her life. When she tries to appeal against the spurious fine for disobeying a bus driver, the police retaliation is swift.

White's 16-year-old daughter is kidnapped by another policeman, driven to a cemetery, and raped. During her ordeal she has the presence of mind to memorize the car's registration. But it makes no difference. Despite Parks' tireless work, neither Perkins nor White, nor White's daughter, will see any justice. So local women are really getting tired

of the situation on the buses, local Black women, because Black women make up 80% of the Montgomery City Line ridership. They're domestic servants mostly, and they need to take the bus because they can't afford cars, and they take it take the bus because they can't afford cars. And they take it from the black side of town where they live to the white side of town to work in white women's kitchens.

The buses are sites of violence, and there are spaces where black women's bodily integrity is limited at best. Conscious of the problems on public transport, E.D. Nixon has been considering backing a case related to segregation on the buses. But he knows he has only one shot. He might be a community leader with connections to trade unions and the church, but resources are limited. In 1955, however, two potential cases come through the doors of the Montgomery NAACP in quick succession. potential cases come through the doors of the Montgomery NAACP in quick succession. The first is Mary Louise Smith, an 18-year-old Black woman. She's arrested when she refuses to cede her seat to a white person. Nixon wastes no time investigating. E.D. Nixon goes to Mary Louise Smith's house, and he kind of looks around. And, you know,

you always have to remember that African-Americans living in this world and even today, they have to be constantly aware of how what they do will be interpreted by white people. W.E.B. Du Bois called this double consciousness. Always aware of your two-ness. You're black, you're American, you're living in a white world.

And so E.D. Nixon as an activist who understands how the white world responds to Black pressure on the status quo is looking at Mary Louise Smith and thinking, they're very poor, she's dark complected, her father has a drinking problem, she's not the best person. Not long afterwards, there's Claudette Colvin.

She's younger than Smith, only 15, and she knows Parks personally through the youth group. Colvin often stays over with Parks after meetings. But once again, when Nixon investigates,

he decides that Colvin isn't the case to pin their hopes on. She's young. She's fiery, she knows her rights. But, rightly or wrongly, he's looking for someone different. Someone older, maybe. Someone with more quiet dignity. Someone like Rosa Parks.

Rosa Parks. For Parks, 1955 has already been a dark year. She's kept her ear to the ground. She's heard about every bus intimidation, all the rapes, the kidnaps, and the lynchings. She knows all about the case of Emma Till back in August. Till, just 14 years old, was murdered by a gang of white men for allegedly whistling at a white woman.

His mother shares the horrific photos of his mutilated body with the press, and the case sends shockwaves through black America. White power structures are so bold, so brutal, that even black children are getting murdered without anyone being held to account. The legal arm of the NAACP is pursuing justice, but hopes are low. But there's been progress too. In another part of the country, a test case for the desegregation of schools has been won. There's a difference between a law being passed and being implemented, though, and activists know the battle isn't over.

In her role as a youth leader, Parks is sent on a two-week workshop at the Highlander School in Monteagle, Tennessee. For the first time in her life, she's learning alongside white people. When they're not strategizing together, they're sharing meals at the same tables, taking walks together. They sleep in shared dorms. And this, to Rosa, is an incredible thing.

It opens her eyes to the possibility of a future without segregation. It makes for a hard landing when she comes back to Montgomery. The indignities she suffers every single working day are almost unbearable, especially when magnified through the lens of what she's just seen at Highlander. And it's not just the buses. She's had enough of not being allowed to measure the white people she's making clothes for, or being permitted to spend her money in the staff canteen, but being forced to eat in a cramped back room adjoining a toilet with no door. Or still not being allowed to drink at the same fountains,

eat at the same restaurants, use the same restrooms as the white people she knows are no better than she is. And then at the end of November, a meeting is called at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The visiting speaker shares the news with the packed congregation that Emmett Till's murderers have been found not guilty. Parks, like everyone else in the room, is horrified. It turns out she does have a limit, after all. And this is it.

It's four days later, on Thursday the 1st of December 1955. After finishing her shift, Rosa Parks visits the drugstore, then waits for the boss. Distracted by manoeuvring her shopping, she pays her fare and finds a seat in the central section. It's getting dark, and she's eager to get home to her mother and Raymond. The bus stops twice, and starts to fill up. At the third stop, a white man gets on. Parks will later say that she paid no notice to the passenger himself, and his name has since been lost to history. One name we do know, however, is that of the driver.

Parks realizes that it's James F. Blake, the man she encountered twelve years before, whom she'd sworn never to ride with again. He stands up, already angry. He tells the people in her road to get up, but Rosa Parks stays where she is. At this point, several people leave the bus, knowing where this is likely headed. Blake stands over Parks. If you don't stand up, he says I'm going to have to call the police and have you arrested To which Rosa Parks, folding her hands over her purse, replies

You may do that Blake could have chosen just to have her ejected from the boss But he's not the kind of man to waste an opportunity So he carries out his threat And a short while later, Parks is taken off to Montgomery City Jail. She's fingerprinted and placed in a cell. When she asks for a glass of water, she's refused. The water there is for whites only. When eventually she gets access to a phone, she calls home. The first thing her mother asks is whether she's been beaten.

Then Raymond comes on the line and tells her he'll be there just as soon as he can. Needing a car and a way of paying the bail, Raymond calls Nixon, who rallies some friends. According to one source, Nixon can hardly contain his glee when he breaks the news I believe Jim Crow has dropped into our laps exactly what we've been waiting for, he says At the time, there is speculation that Parks' refusal to move was pre-planned But no evidence surfaces to that effect And several sources recall Nixon's surprise at Parks' arrest It's gone nine o'clock before she's released, and by now, the wheels of protest are already

in motion. But this time, it's not Nixon who will make the first move. Professor Joanne Robinson of Alabama State University is president of the Women's Political Council. She's followed the cases of Mary Louise Smith and Claudette Colvin and watched with dismay as Nixon backed away from them. This time, she's taking matters into her own hands. Being out alone at night is a great risk to a black woman. Nonetheless, Robinson sneaks back onto the campus under cover of darkness. She goes to the university with some assistance and she runs off, you know, like 40,000 handbills

on an old mimeograph machine. And she cuts them. It says, another black woman has been arrested on the buses and we can't take this anymore. Next time it may be you, your mother, or your sister. And she calls her connections in the Women's Political Council and says, I have these handbills, these flyers. You need to pass out right away in the morning, announcing a one-day boycott. And by noon that day, everyone in the Black community knew that there would be a one-day boycott.

It's Monday, the 5th of December, 1955, four days after Rosa Parks' arrest. A trial will take place later in the day. The rain is coming down in sheets from a charcoal sky. Few people would choose this dreary morning for a walk to work or school. But as the city comes to life, the rain-soaked pavements fill. To begin with, it's just a few more black people treading the sidewalks than usual. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Then it grows.

Hundreds and now thousands of black men, women and children, who would ordinarily take their chances on the buses, are walking. There's a pulse in the air, a sense of defiance, of history being made. Confused bus drivers hover at the stops, then drive away almost empty. Those who want to join the boycott, but have too far to travel, have organised carpools. People who want to join the boycott, but have too far to travel, have organized carpools. And cab drivers are getting involved too, charging just 10 cents to match the fares of the hated bosses. In all, something like 42,000 people join the boycott.

When Parks' trial is heard later that day, the streets around the courthouse are packed with supporters. If the people on the courthouse are packed with supporters. If the people on the sidewalks of Montgomery didn't know Rosa Parks' name yesterday, they definitely do today. A chant starts up. They've messed with the wrong one now. Parks is found guilty of violation of a city code and fined $10 plus a court cost of $4. That evening, a meeting is held at Dexter Avenue Church.

In recent months, the congregation elected to replace their pastor with someone new, who they hope will be less angry, less antagonistic than their previous leader. Their new pastor strides to the front of the packed hall, holding his hand up for silence. He's 26 years old, straight out of graduate school, but he's already been chosen to lead this boycott. Well, all the other black ministers in town, you know, they know that if they're going to get behind a bus boycott, they're going to be targeted by white people. And their wives could lose their jobs. They could lose what other side job they have.

Their church could be bombed. They're kind of like, yeah, this sounds great, but we don't, I'm not going to be in charge of it. I don't want to put my name on the committee. And Edie Nixon scolds all these ministers and says, what kind of men are you hiding behind these women's skirts? Like, here's Joanne Robinson and black women who are out in front of this saying they're going to have a boycott. And you're afraid to move forward?

Rosa Parks was just arrested. You're hiding, you know, behind your church pews? And he really scolds them. And so they have a vote. Well, who will be the minister in charge? Where will we have the meetings? They figure if anyone's going to get, you know, targeted, let it be the new guy.

The new guy is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And he electrifies the audience. In his speech, watched from the wings by Parks, he invokes the Old Testament, the Constitution, the American Revolution, and almost instantaneously he's transformed in that city into a superstar. Parks is introduced to the crowd. She's given a standing ovation, but she doesn't speak. It's now that the mythology surrounding Rosa Parks really begins. Despite her decades

of activism, her indefatigable commitment to racial justice, what emerges is an image of a meek, quiet woman who merely wanted to rest her feet. You know, she didn't want to be in the spotlight because she knew it would put extraordinary pressure on her and her family and would make them targets of violence. And so, you know, in some ways, staying silent was a calculated political move. But the story becomes one of Dr. King and Rosa Parks as the symbol who stayed seated, right? Who just sort of quietly did nothing. And that's, I think, where history takes a turn and that story gets locked in time. And almost every photo that you see of Rosa Parks is also locked in that moment. She's sitting on the bus forever, 42, you know? And Dr. King then becomes like the movement figure. And it just

didn't happen that way. There's nothing wrong necessarily with being meek. And I think that also it's important to remember that sometimes meekness is a tool of revolution. But then she also kind of flew under the radar in her more radical and kind of revolutionary activism because everybody still had her on that bus with tired feet. So, you know, she probably was able to do more because of that persona. The boycott group, to be known as the Montgomery Improvement Association, settle in for the long haul. They state their aims.

They demand courteous treatment, equal access to seats, and the employment of Black bus operators. They're not going to get back on the buses until their demands are met. So the boycott continues the next day, and the next. Carpools become more organized, with 40 stops all over the city. The cabbies continue operating on subsidized fares. People walk, ride bikes, even take mules or horse-drawn buggies to work. Word spreads, first across the state, then across America.

Churches organize to send shoes to protesters who've worn their souls out with walking. Many people lose their jobs through lack of transport. But the community rallies and provides food for those families with lost income. The Montgomery City Lines bus company refuses to accept any blame, focusing solely on their responsibility to enforce the state rules. They lose 65% of their business. percent of their business. For its part, City Hall focuses on breaking the boycott, fining any cab drivers found to be charging fares less than 45 cents. At one point, 89 organizers, including Dr. King, are arrested on charges of conspiracy.

Worse still, the homes of King and another church leader are firebombed. Hearing of the attack, an angry 300-strong crowd of supporters gathers outside his house. But, if anything, King's commitment to non-violence is only fortified. If you have weapons, take them home, he tells them. We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence. We must meet violence with nonviolence." His sentiments, however, do nothing to allay fears in Washington. A directive comes from the desk of J. Edgar Hoover, the Machiavellian director of the FBI. In a memo referring to the boycott as, quote,

"...agitation among Negroes," Hoover requests agents unearth any derogatory evidence against King. For better or worse, word of a powerful new voice in the civil rights movement has made its way to the very top. The boycott rumbles on. Parks loses her job, as does Raymond, almost as soon as the boycott starts. Later, their house is attacked,

prompting Parks to ask for armed protection. In June, the state of Alabama outlaws the NAACP, while membership of the far-right White Citizens Council doubles in mere months. A federal district court rules that the segregation system on Alabama buses is unconstitutional. The state appeals, so the case goes to the Supreme Court. But in November 1965, the Supreme Court upholds the decision. The boycott finally ends after 381 days. On December 20, 1956, King and another clergyman, a white man, sit next to each other on a Montgomery City Lines bus. Nobody challenges them. The boycott may be

over, but it will be a long time until the war is won. You know, there's always been white backlash to any form of Black advancement. I mean, that's just been the history of our country. You know, there's always been white backlash to any form of Black advancement. I mean, that's just been the history of our country. You know, when we had Reconstruction, you saw the rise of the KKK. When you saw Black colleges emerging, same thing. You know, that's when you saw Black lynching exploding. When you saw desegregation in the armed forces. I mean, almost everything, every time you saw something positive,

you saw, you know, two steps backwards. The backlash is as fast as it is ferocious. On December the 22nd, a shotgun is fired into King's house. Two days later, on Christmas Eve, a black teenager is badly beaten by a group of white men as she disembarks from a desegregated bus. Before the year is out, a pregnant woman riding a bus is shot in both legs by a sniper. Within the next few weeks, five black churches will burn to the ground. While they may no longer be able to enforce segregation on the bosses, the city

of Montgomery doubles down. Ensuring the black community are under no illusion that they've won, in March 1957 the city passes a ban on interracial mixing in leisure activities. The new rule forbids white and black people to play games of any kinds together. This includes children. So Rosa Parks and her husband leave Montgomery because they've been locked out of economic opportunity there. White people have coalesced to basically guarantee that Rosa Parks and her husband never get a job again, in the white community at least.

And they're under constant threat of violence. And so they are scared, they're. And they're under constant threat of violence. And so they are scared, they're poor, they're tired, and they decide to go to Detroit. They have sort of the expectation that Detroit is going to be much easier than Alabama, that it's going to be less racist, that it's going to have lots of job opportunities, that they're going to be able to find housing easily. And none of that's really true. In the late 1960s, Rosa Parks gets her first paid political post working for John Conyers, a Black politician running for Congress. She works for him for decades. She still rides the bus and answers phones. This was not someone who just kind of rolled off into the sunset and said, OK, well, my place in history is assured.

I'm just going to go and live this quiet life in Detroit. She took the bus to work when she worked for Congressman Conyers. And she sat at the front desk. So people would walk into Congressman John Conyers' office and Rosa Parks would be sitting at the front desk, you know, answering the phone. She never really stopped being an activist. Parks would be sitting at the front desk, you know, answering the phone. She never really stopped being an activist. I don't think maybe people paid as close attention to her later years, but she really never stopped. And I think it's so ironic that she has this reputation as being this meek, mild seamstress with tired feet who just sat down because she was tired after a long day's work. just sat down because she was tired after a long day's work,

when she had been steeped in a tradition of activism her entire life, had been trained as an activist, had married an activist, was the child of activists. She was, in many ways, kind of a radical. The 70s and 80s are hard for Parks. She loses her mother, whom she's nursed through cancer and dementia. Then both Raymond and her brother Sylvester pass away. But in these later years, as the civil rights movement continues to chip away at the apparatus of oppression, she is festooned in honours. She receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Congressional Honours, honorary doctorates

from around the world. Roads, train stations, centers of learning, even an asteroid are named after her. In 2005, Rosa Parks dies at the age of 92. A casket is taken to Washington, D.C. on a bus, similar to the one she boarded 50 years previously. on a bus, similar to the one she boarded 50 years previously. She is the first woman, and only the second black person in US history, to lie in state in the capital, Rotunda. 50,000 people come to pay their respects. At her seven-hour funeral, she is honored by Senator Barack Obama. Condoleezza Rice addresses the mourners, telling them that without Rosa Parks, she would likely never have become Secretary of State.

Parks dedicated her life to challenging the framework of racism. But to many, dismantling it completely still feels a long way off. Mrs. Parks' work is not done. And I think that Mrs. Parks, the conditions that Mrs. Parks was fighting against in Alabama in the 40s, the 30s even, and certainly the 50s, still persist in 2021. We have a lower home ownership rate in 2021 than we had in the 1960s. White Americans have two and a half times more wealth than Black Americans. We don't have de facto segregation anymore.

But the fact of the matter is our schools are still deeply segregated. And it's not the segregation that makes them inferior. It's the lack of resources. And the lack of resources are a consequence of the lack of capital. And the lack of capital is a consequence of, you know, economic injustice that persists to this day. She was someone who really, truly loved Black people. And I think as a person who really did truly love Black people, she would be so sad to see, you know, in 2021, we're still having debates about voting rights. We're still having debates about police brutality. The things that they were fighting for in the 50s and 60s are still being debated. The only thing you can do is hold on to hope. I saw for the first time in my life, lots of white people on the streets with the Black Lives Matter rallies in 2020.

I never saw that in my lifetime. The only way we solve racism is that white people stop being racist. And the way that white people stop being racist is that white people hold each other accountable about racism. Black people cannot end racism. The myth of her tired feet that accompanies the narrative of that day in 1955 undermines the bravery of her extraordinary defiance. She knew what she would risk taking that stand, but she also knew what her beloved community might gain. The only tired I was, she said, was tired of giving in. And that's enough to elevate her from a timid seamstress to an international icon of nonviolent activism.

And only now is she, I think, really getting the full treatment of history so people can see the full picture of who she was and what she did and what she accomplished over the course of her life. Understanding that she was an activist from the 1930s until, you know, really right before she died in 2005. That's a long time to be an activist. It wasn't just one thing that she did, right? So those are important lessons, I think, for activists today to understand that, you know, movements take time. They build on each other.

Every campaign builds on itself and leads to something else. You need networks. And these networks shift and grow and change over time. But you always call on them again and again and again for whatever is coming your way, whatever you want to change. You know, Rosa Parks' life, I think, provides us that kind of an example of how to be an activist your whole life,

the ups and the downs and the challenges. It's not just heroism and being an icon. Next time on Short History Of... We'll bring you a short history of the gunpowder plot. And he discovers Guy Fawkes wearing a cloak, he's wearing a hat and he's wearing boots and spurs. And immediately that's suspicious. They grab him, ask him what's going on and then they search the firewood

and they discover the firewood, and they discover the burrows under there. The idea was to wipe out the royal family as well as Parliament. That's next time on Short History Of. Follow us on Twitter for updates. Tweet us with suggestions for Short History Of topics. If there's a story you think we should cover in the show, write to us with your suggestion.