Today in History: Rosa Parks is arrested

Just a few days after Rosa Parks’ arrest in Montgomery, Alabama, a little-known, 26 year-old pastor named Martin Luther King Jr. stood by her side, along with thousands of her fellow citizens.

On Dec. 1, 1955, she left her job at a department store and boarded a public bus to head home.

“Rosa Parks reminds us that there is always something we can do”, Mr. Obama said in a statement.

Clinton and the attendees closed the event by standing arm-in-arm and singing “We Shall Overcome”, a protest song that became the anthem of the civil rights movement. King’s daughter, Bernice King, gave the benediction after Clinton’s speech.

Clinton said it’s time to “end the era of mass incarceration in America”, noting that more than 2 million Americans are now incarcerated, many for nonviolent crimes. She refused to move, began yelling about her constitutional rights and had to be physically removed from the bus by police officers.

“Mr. Gray will be participating in the Alabama Public Television electronic field trip, it’s a virtual field trip, but we have invited local 8th graders to come to the museum to the auditorium to participate in a live webcast where they will ask panelists about the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Civil Rights Movement”.

FILE – Rosa Parks smiles during a ceremony where she received the Congressional Medal of Freedom in Detroit, Michigan, Nov. 28, 1999.

Parks sat down on the bus on December 1, 1955, not knowing she would soon be known as “The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”. Mary Louise Smith, Aurelia Browder and Susie McDonald – who were all plaintiffs in the case that moved the U.S. Supreme Court to rule bus segregation unconstitutional – also refused to move from their seats before Parks did. The visit comes as Clinton is attempting to consolidate her support among African-American voters heading into the early primaries, when she hopes to wrap up the Democratic nomination before challenger Bernie Sanders can gain momentum. “I consider this a national emergency”. “I thought we had solved that problem, thanks to numerous lawyers we are honoring today, but unfortunately there is mischief afoot and some people are just determined to do what they can to keep other Americans from voting”.

But Clinton, the current frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, also marked the occasion with a special logo on her social media accounts.

In her later years, Parks said 26-year-old King was picked because he was a newcomer to Montgomery and didn’t have any enemies in the community. As she was being arrested, she said, she thought about the unfairness of the practice and those who had died in an attempt to simply have the rights the U.S. Constitution affords them.