hite men got on the bus, the driver ordered Mrs. Parks to give up her seat and move to the back. Parks refused and the bus driver called the police and had her arrested. It was an arrest that galvanized and united civil rights leaders and the black community. The Montgomery bus boycott that ensued would be a monumental event for black civil rights because it was carried out on such a widespread scale, it cast civil rights struggle into the national spotlight, and it also helped launch Martin Luther King. Jr.’s career as a national leader of the civil rights movement. All of this from the simple nonviolent refusal of one woman’s adherence to what was morally right, in spite of existing laws. As Rosa Parks stated in a recent interview, she did not intend to catalyze a movement, she had merely had enough of being treated as an inferior solely because of her color, “I had not planned to get arrested, I had plenty to do without having to end up in jail. But when I had to face that decision, I didn’t hesitate to do so, because I felt that we had endured that too long and the more we gave in and the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became. And that was an opportunity for me to take a stand to express the way I felt about being treated in the manner”. Parks had no idea at the time of her refusal to comply just how significant an expression she was making. Little did she know her actions tapped into the collective black consciousness. A tapping that served to launch the Montgomery bus boycott, the careers of prominent black leaders, and desegregation legislation from the Supreme Court. This analysis will review the events that transpired during and after the Montgomery Bus Boycott in order to illustrate the significance of this event in the civil rights movement.
To understand the significance of the Montgomery bus boycott, one needs to appreciate some of the issues blacks were faci...