As the bus filled with new riders, the driver told Parks to give up her seat to a white passenger. She refused. The driver called police, and Parks was arrested.
Her arrest sparked a major protest. For more than a year, most Black people in Montgomery stood together and refused to take city buses. One of the leaders of the boycott was a young local pastor named Martin Luther King, Jr. Public vehicles stood idle, and the city lost money. Parks died on October 24, Two policemen got on the bus in a couple of minutes. The driver told the police that I would not stand up. The policeman walked down and asked me why I didn't stand up, and I said I didn't think I should stand up.
And he said, "I don't know. But the law is the law and you are under arrest. One of them picked up my purse, the other picked up my shopping bag. And we left the bus together. It was the first time I'd had that particular thing happen.
I was determined that I let it be known that I did not want to be treated in this manner. The policemen had their squad car waiting, they gave me my purse and bag, and they opened the back door of the police car for me to enter. Did you think your actions would have such a far-reaching effect on the Civil Rights movement? I didn't have any idea just what my actions would bring about. At the time I was arrested I didn't know how the community would react.
I was glad that they did take the action that they did by staying off the bus. What was it like walking all those miles when the bus boycott was going on? We were fortunate enough to have a carpool organized to pick people up and give them rides. Of course, many people walked and sometimes I did too. I was willing to walk rather than go back to the buses under those unfair conditions. Very shortly after the boycott began, I was dismissed from my job as a seamstress at a department store. I worked at home doing sewing and typing.
I don't know why I was dismissed from the job, but I think it was because I was arrested. What did your family think about what happened? After I was in jail I had the opportunity to call home and speak to my mother.
The first thing she asked me was if they had attacked me, beat me. That's what they used to do to people. I said no, that I hadn't been hurt, but I was in jail. She gave the phone to my husband and he said he would be there shortly and would get me out of jail.
There was a man who had come to my house who knew I had been arrested. He told my husband he'd give him a ride to the jail. Meantime, Mr. He called to see if I was at the jail. The people at the jail wouldn't tell him I was there. So Mr. Nixon got in touch with a white lawyer named Clifford Durr. Durr called the jail, and they told him that I was there. Nixon had to pick up Mr. Durr before he could come get me. Durr's wife insisted on going too, because she and I were good friends.
Nixon helped release me from jail. Were you scared to do such a brave thing? No, actually I had no fear at that particular time.
When I did realize, I faced it, and it was quite a challenge to be arrested. I did not really know what would happen. I didn't feel especially frightened. I felt more annoyed than frightened. Did you know that you were going to jail if you didn't give up your seat? Well, I knew I was going to jail when the driver said he was going to have me arrested.
I didn't feel good about going to jail, but I was willing to go to let it be known that under this type of segregation, black people had endured too much for too long. How did you feel when you were asked to give up your seat? I didn't feel very good about being told to stand up and not have a seat. I felt I had a right to stay where I was. That was why I told the driver I was not going to stand. I believed that he would arrest me. I did it because I wanted this particular driver to know that we were being treated unfairly as individuals and as a people.
What were your feelings when you were able to sit in the front of the bus for the first time? It was something rather special. However, when I knew the boycott was over, and that we didn't have to be mistreated on the bus anymore, that was a much better feeling than I had when we were being mistreated.
How do you feel about being called the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement"? I accept the title quite well. I appreciate the fact that people feel that way about me. I don't know who started calling me that. People also think that her not giving up her seat was all a planned, staged thing for the media.
Maybe you've seen that famous picture of my aunt getting arrested and the man fingerprinting her — well, that's not even from Dec.
It's from the second time she was arrested. Yes, she got arrested more than once. By the time that photograph was taken, word had gotten out across the country that Montgomery had started a bus boycott.
So that's when the media showed up to take a picture. My aunt wasn't even paying attention that day she got on the bus. She had been avoiding that driver's bus for 12 years.
He would stop at her stop and she wouldn't get on. That particular day she wasn't paying attention because she was thinking of Emmett Till, who had been murdered that summer. She already paid her money when she realized it was that same driver, but then she figured she'd go ahead and sit down. She didn't stand up when the driver demanded that she stand up because she kept thinking of him being killed. She was that angry. Keep in mind, it was legal for bus drivers back then to carry handguns — my aunt could have been shot and killed on that bus.
Once word of mouth spread about what happened to my aunt, it helped people have a little bit more courage than before. You have to understand, my aunt was a known person in the community. She became the recording secretary for the NAACP almost 15 years before she refused to give up her seat on that bus. Everyone knew her based off of her writing down stories like Recy Taylor's: Oh, she was the lady who held my hand when my uncle got beat up.
She got my kid involved in a youth program to read books. She was the one who came and tried to get me to register to vote. They were shocked that something could happen to nice Mrs. Before then, many black people were like, "Oh well, that person should have not got arrested.
They should have just gotten off the bus. She wrote in one of her journals about her feelings of hurt after she got arrested. She worked in the department store where she was a seamstress for the next five weeks after that and then they let her go.
During that time, her black coworkers didn't speak to her — that whole five weeks. She would say good morning and they wouldn't say anything. It was very disheartening. They looked at her like she was stirring up trouble for them.
My aunt explained to me that it was because Jim Crow was telling them, "This is the best life you're going to have, and you can get killed if you resist. People also don't know that my aunt went through a lot of financial hardships after what happened. She had health issues and developed ulcers and couldn't afford the medication. She didn't get real, stable work until when her brother, my Grandfather McCauley, convinced her to move to Detroit.
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