Published: Monday, February 18, 2013, 12:01 a.m.
Black History Month honors civil rights heroes
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Black History Month celebrates big moments: changing the Constitution to end slavery, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and the election of the first black president.
But February's Black History Month also celebrates small moments that led to big changes, such as a black woman's refusal to give up her bus seat to a white person.
That woman was Rosa Parks, who was born 100 years ago Feb. 4. Her action in Montgomery, Ala., on Dec. 1, 1955, was intended to be a small protest.
"I had no idea that when I refused to give up my seat on that Montgomery bus that my small action would help put an end to segregation laws in the South," Parks wrote in her autobiography for kids, "Rosa Parks: My Story." "I only knew that I was tired of being pushed around."
She was arrested and found guilty of violating segregation laws, rules that required black people and white people to attend separate schools, drink from separate water fountains and sit in separate areas on buses.
Lawyers filed a court case challenging the fairness of segregating buses. The U.S. Supreme Court decided that it was against the Constitution, and black people in Montgomery were allowed to sit in any bus seat. That victory led to many other challenges to segregation laws in the United States.
Parks became a hero of those fighting for equality for blacks. She died in 2005.
But February's Black History Month also celebrates small moments that led to big changes, such as a black woman's refusal to give up her bus seat to a white person.
That woman was Rosa Parks, who was born 100 years ago Feb. 4. Her action in Montgomery, Ala., on Dec. 1, 1955, was intended to be a small protest.
"I had no idea that when I refused to give up my seat on that Montgomery bus that my small action would help put an end to segregation laws in the South," Parks wrote in her autobiography for kids, "Rosa Parks: My Story." "I only knew that I was tired of being pushed around."
She was arrested and found guilty of violating segregation laws, rules that required black people and white people to attend separate schools, drink from separate water fountains and sit in separate areas on buses.
Lawyers filed a court case challenging the fairness of segregating buses. The U.S. Supreme Court decided that it was against the Constitution, and black people in Montgomery were allowed to sit in any bus seat. That victory led to many other challenges to segregation laws in the United States.
Parks became a hero of those fighting for equality for blacks. She died in 2005.
Story tags » • History
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