If it wasn’t for him Rosa Parks would have spent a night in jail and her name would be among the long list of forgotten Blacks who refused to give up their seats on the bus who was either kicked off or arrested for breaking the law. And Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, would have pursued his goal of becoming a great preacher, who one day would succeed his father as the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. If not for him, there would have been no Montgomery Bus Boycott. Yet his name is never mentioned when it comes to Civil Rights pioneers.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott kicked off the national Civil Rights Movement that propelled Dr. King into the national limelight as one of the greatest leaders in this country’s history. And Parks is looked upon as its symbol. The boycott was urged, planned and organized by the city’s NAACP President E. D. Nixon who decided that Rosa Parks was the right person to challenge the law and he handpicked Rev. King as the leader.
On Dec. 1, 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a White man. This was not the first time this had happened. Many Blacks had challenged this law by refusing to give up their seat, but they were either kicked off the bus or arrested. The local NAACP had been planning to challenge this law for a while but had not found the right person to back. So when Parks, a highly respected person in the community who also worked with the youth program of the NAACP, was arrested Nixon decided the time was right.