Well, Mrs Rosa Parks, of course, the mother of the modern civil rights movement, not known by that title at that time, was leaving work at Montgomery Fair department store. It was a segregated atmosphere, a men's tailoring shop. It was segregated with a partition, white workers on one side of the partition and black workers, then refer to as coloured, on the other side of the partition. And, of course, the black workers had the majority of the work to do. And it had been a long day for her. But still she had more activities to do. She was indeed the youth leader and they were having a youth conference that weekend. So she wanted to rush home and assemble the youth so they could continue with the preparation. And she wasn't paying attention to details when she arrived at the bus stop. She just got on the bus, and really didn't quite notice the bus driver until after she had dropped her fare in the box.

The reason that she kind of startled or stumbled just a little bit was that she recognise the bus driver, after she had dropped her fare in the box. And it was the same bus driver that had dismissed her from the bus in 1943. At that time, there was an incident, well it was kind of like the custom, if the bus drivers wanted to enforce it. All did not enforce it, but this bus driver did. And he wanted passengers of colour to get on in the front of the bus and drop their money in the box and then get off the bus and enter through the rear door. Mrs. Parks never practised that custom. And if she saw that that was indeed what was requested, she didn't ride that bus. But she got on the bus and this bus driver wanted her to get off and go to the rear. And she said she was not doing that. And he said, well, you know, you must get off my bus. He was a little harsh about it. And I think that she was startled. And as a result, she dropped her purse on the floor. Well, she dropped it right, you know, when you get on the bus, there is a long seat there that you can sit on. And when she dropped her purse, rather than bending over, she sat down to retrieve her purse. Well, there was a white person that was absolutely, you know, startled, you know, my goodness you know, a person of colour sat down on the same seat that I was was sitting, they just made a startling noise. And the bus driver took her sleeve, kind of harshly and she jerked her arm away from him, and said “Don't touch me”, and retrieved her purse and got off the bus. You might know that he just pulled off, he did not give her chance to get to the rear. Nor was she going to the rear anyway. But she had to walk home that particular day.

So needless to say that she remembered him. But she was just another coloured face, so he did not remember her. And when she got on the bus, December 1 1955, she didn't realise that it was the same bus driver. History has told us that his name was James Blake. And she went to sit down, this is December 1 1955. People were already standing in the rear of the bus and she went to the only vacant seat in the coloured section. There were two people that occupied seats on one side of the aisle and there was a man who had just gotten up to get off the bus that left a vacant seat. And the man that was there, in fact, moved over to the window seat and she sat in the aisle seat. Well, at the very next stop, white passengers got on the bus and they took all of the seats that were in the white section. And it left one white man standing. Now this gentleman didn't say anything, he just stood and held on to the rail, didn't say a word. But the bus driver, James Blake again, turned around saw this gentleman standing and he said to the people in the first row of the coloured section “Y'all give me those seats”. And no one moved, you know, at his first demand. And when he turned again and saw that nobody had moved he said “Y'all make a light on yourself and give me those seats”. And the three passengers stood. But Mrs. Parks turned her legs so that the man sitting next to the window next to her could pass. He passed her and then she moved over to the window seat.

So as the driver went to take off again, he could see Mrs. Parks from the corner of his eye. She was on the side opposite where the driver was. In the United States the driver is on the left side. And so she was sitting on the right side, and he could easily just turn his head and see if there was someone sitting there. And he said “Are you gonna move?” And she said “No, I am not”. And he said “Well, I'm going to have you arrested”. And she said quietly “You may do that”. Mrs. Parks knew that she was in her right. She was in fact a member of the NAACP, had been riding the bus for years, was very civic minded and she knew the law. That if the bus was filled, and there was no room for her to stand, they could not move the people further to the back. There was no place to push them. There was a plaque card that they attached to the back of the seat, there is a little rail on the back of the seat that you hold on sometimes to keep from falling. And on one side, that face the white passengers section it said white. And on the side that face the coloured passengers it said coloured. So she was sitting on the side that said coloured. However, he wanted that row to stand up and push to the back and there was no place for her to stand. So she remained seated.

The bus had to stop. The bus driver had to get off the bus, call his dispatcher at a pay phone booth. And the passengers on the bus became quite disgruntled. Some said “I'm going to be late”, “Why won't she move” or you know those kind of little under-breath comments, as many of them disembarked. Some remained seated, they wanted to see what the adventure was going to be. Well, he had to remain at that stop until the police came to remove her from the bus. And when the police officers got on the bus, they picked up her parcels and told her that she was under arrest. And she asked the question “Why do you all push us around?” And one of the officers said to her “I don't know, but the law is the law and you're under arrest”. And they escorted her off the bus and placed her in the patrol car that had a wire partition between them, that made it look like bars, you knew that section was only for the prisoners. And drove her to the jail where she was fingerprinted and arrested.