Taunton School Main Building at Dusk

On this day in 1955

Posted: 1st December 2017

Each Tuesday the intrepid team of TPS History detectives meet to delve into the past and research famous events to coincide with the publishing date of The Courier that week. They have only one hour to research, write and illustrate their articles. We hope you enjoy them and discover some fascinating bits of History.

Joanna Hall-Tomkin, Head of History and Pastoral Head Years 5&6

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1st December 1955
Rosa Parks makes her point

In the 1950’s in America, black and white people were treated very differently. Signs were used to show non-white people where they could legally walk, talk, drink, rest, or eat and there were even special schools and graveyards for black and white people.

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement, whom the United States Congress called “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement”. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, she refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake’s order to give up her seat in the “colored section” to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled. Her actions encouraged others and she became a symbol of the racial inequality in America. Her stand led eventually, to changes in the law.

After the incident happened she was arrested and put in jail but then the black people in Montgomery stopped using the buses. This had a dramatic economic effect and meant that the law was changed so that black people did not have to give up their seats for white people. Eventually the changes also led to black people desiring to go to the same schools as white people and the breaking down of racial segregation (inequality).

The TPS History Detectives

 

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