On 1 December 1955, the actions of one woman started a movement that changed life for all African Americans.
On that day, Rosa Parks refused to leave her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, so a white man could sit down.
At that time, most black Americans didn’t have equal rights with Whites. In the Southern states, like Alabama, it was extremely difficult for black people to vote. And there was a system of segregation or racial separation: black people couldn’t go to the same schools, restaurants or cinemas as white people. In Alabama, black people could only sit in certain seats in buses, and had to leave their seat if a white person wanted to sit.
Rosa Parks was a political activist who wanted black and white people to have the same rights. When she refused to give her seat to a white man, the police arrested her.
This was not the first case of a black woman refusing to give up her seat. This time, the African Americans in Montgomery, the state capital of Alabama, decided to protest. They asked black people to participate in a one-day bus boycott on Monday, 5 December, when Rosa Parks was judged in court. A committee was formed, called the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and it chose for its leader Dr Martin Luther King, a 26-year-old Protestant pastor.
The MIA hoped 50 per cent (50%) of African Americans would refuse to take the bus. In fact, 99% participated in the boycott. On the evening of 5 December, thousands of people went to Dr King's church for an MIA meeting.
They voted to continue the boycott until Alabama ended segregation on buses.
The boycott lasted 381 days.
African-Americans walked or cycled to work or school, or organised informal taxi systems. They suffered intimidation. MIA leaders were arrested and black churches, and leaders' homes, were bombed. But they didn't give in. They continued their peaceful protest. The MIA decided to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to declare the bus segregation illegal in the name of four black women who had suffered discrimination before Rosa Parks. That included two teenagers, Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith, aged 15 and 18.
On 20 December 1956, Alabama accepted a Supreme Court decision that buses mustn't be segregated. It was a victory for African Americans, not just in Alabama, but all over the country.
The bus boycott made Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King famous.
For Rosa Parks, it had negative consequences in the short term. She and her husband lost their jobs and no one wanted to employ them.
But she later went to work for a Congressman and started the Rosa and Raymond Parks Foundation to help young people. In 1996, she received the Medal of Freedom, the most prestigious honour an American citizen can receive. She died in 2005 at the age of 92.
For Dr King, it was the first victory in his campaign for equal rights for all American citizens. The campaign was ultimately a success, culminating with the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and Civil Rights Act in 1968, which guaranteed equal rights. Dr King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1963.
But he was assassinated in 1968. He is commemorated every year on Martin Luther King Day, the third Monday in January, a federal holiday.
1. Read the article and find the missing information in each sentence:
2. Choose the right number or date:
3. What was forbidden (interdit) or required for African Americans to do?
4. Transforme ces phrases à la voie passive:
5. Match the phrasal verbs with their meaning: