The Pantagraph from Bloomington, Illinois • Page 39

Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate tS 3 1 2005 The Mini Paga Publishing Company Inc. 1 A Tuesday, February 15, 2005 The Pantagraph from The Mint Page by Betty Debnam 2005 The Mint Page Publishing Company Inc. A Modern Heroine osa Parks w.iiu.uni.i n00" I Refusing to take it anymore On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks decided she would not give up her seat to a white passenger. She said later that she was tired of suffering the indignities of racism.

She had too much self-respect to allow people to keep treating her this way. She was arrested. Her arrest triggered a boycott of the buses in Montgomery. Black people refused to ride the buses until the laws were 1 tA r- Sometimes one simple act of courage can change the world. Fifty years ago, on Dec.

1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a black woman in Montgomery, got tired of dealing with prejudice. She fought back with dignity and without violence. She set in motion a series of events that helped change laws that discriminated against African-Americans. Segregation Rosa Parks grew up in a world where laws forced black and white people to live separately from each other. In the mid-1900s in the South, black people were not allowed the same privileges as white people.

This was called segregation. Black people could not share the same swimming pools, movie seats or restaurants. Black children could not even go to the same schools that white children attended. Riding the bus On public buses, the first 10 seats were usually reserved for white people. If more white people wanted to sit, black passengers had to move to the back of the bus.

Sometimes drivers made black people enter, pay their fares, then get off and come in again through the back door. Sometimes the bus drivers took off changed. Black churches encouraged people to join the boycott. A young minister, Martin Luther King was asked to lead it. The boycott continued for 381 -v.

ii JMllAMirMiiriliTilliriiMiiiiIo 8 Rev. Martin Luther L2 King Jr. days and almost bankrupted the city bus company. On Nov. 13, 1956, the U.S.

Supreme Court ruled that the segregation laws were unconstitutional. They ordered the city to end Rosa Parks (right) and E.D. Nixon, former president of the Alabama NAACP (a group working for black people's rights), arrive at court for the trial of those involved in the bus boycott on March 19, 1956. Fighting against injustice By the 1950s many people were trying to change the segregation laws. Rosa Parks was one of those people.

This took a lot of courage. People fighting against discrimination were threatened, beaten, arrested, and sometimes even killed. Some homes were even bombed. before these segregation on the buses. But the boycott continued for about a month more.

Dr. King and other black leaders would not agree to end the boycott until the city actually started obeying the law and ended the segregation. passengers could reboard..