Eyes on the Prize: Rosa Parks

lack citizens in the South endured daily legal and physical abuse under the Jim Crow system. In schools, restaurants, Btheaters, transportation, and almost every other area they were segregated from whites and treated as second-class citizens. On the evening of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a bus in downtown Montgomery, Alabama. On Montgomery buses, seats in the front rows were for whites, those at the back for blacks. If a white passenger found all the seats taken, a black passenger had to surrender his seat. Such was the case when the white driver ordered Parks to give her seat to a white man. Parks — Rosa Parks is fingerprinted after her arrest. who often referred to the Emmett Till lynching as a motivation for her actions — refused politely, prompting the driver to call the police. Parks was arrested, charged, fined, and held in a cell. Her act of resistance set off a boycott of the city’s bus system, which in turn activated the larger movement against segregation throughout the country.

As you watch the video, answer the questions below.

1. Why did the early struggle against segregation focus on buses and other forms of public accommodations? What power did protesters in Montgomery have over the bus company?

2. Why do you think Rosa Parks was a symbol of the civil rights movement? Why did so many identify with her cause? How did that identification build support for the emerging movement?

3. Notice the role of church during the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Civil Rights Movement. Why was the church so central to the struggle for black freedom?

4. How did whites in Montgomery react to the boycott? Why did some whites choose to help the boycotters? What role did white women play in the boycott?