The Civil Rights Memorial is an American memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, created by Maya Lin. The names of 41 people are inscribed on the granite fountain as martyrs who were killed in the civil rights movement. The memorial is sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement". Parks became an NAACP activist in 1943, participating in several high-profile civil rights campaigns. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks rejected bus driver James F. Blake's order to vacate a row of four seats in the "colored" section in favor of a white passenger, once the "white" section was filled. Parks was not the first person to resist bus segregation, but the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) believed that she was the best candidate for seeing through a court challenge after her arrest for civil disobedience in violating Alabama segregation laws, and she helped inspire the Black community to boycott the Montgomery buses for over a year. The case became bogged down in the state courts, but the federal Montgomery bus lawsuit Browder v. Gayle resulted in a November 1956 decision that bus segregation is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Claudette Colvin is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. This occurred nine months before the more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.
Mary Louise Ware is an African-American civil rights activist. She was arrested in October 1955 at the age of 18 in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat on the segregated bus system. She is one of several women who were arrested for this offense prior to Rosa Parks that year. Parks was the figure around whom the Montgomery bus boycott was organized, starting December 5, 1955.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States. The campaign lasted from December 5, 1955—the Monday after Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested for her refusal to surrender her seat to a white person—to December 20, 1956, when the federal ruling Browder v. Gayle took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional.
Edgar Daniel Nixon, known as E. D. Nixon, was an American civil rights leader and union organizer in Alabama who played a crucial role in organizing the landmark Montgomery bus boycott there in 1955. The boycott highlighted the issues of segregation in the South, was upheld for more than a year by black residents, and nearly brought the city-owned bus system to bankruptcy. It ended in December 1956, after the United States Supreme Court ruled in the related case, Browder v. Gayle (1956), that the local and state laws were unconstitutional, and ordered the state to end bus segregation.
Jo Ann Gibson Robinson was an activist during the Civil Rights Movement and educator in Montgomery, Alabama.
The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was formed on December 5, 1955 by black ministers and community leaders in Montgomery, Alabama. Under the leadership of Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Edgar Nixon, the MIA was instrumental in guiding the Montgomery bus boycott, a successful campaign that focused national attention on racial segregation in the South and catapulted King into the national spotlight.
Browder v. Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707 (1956), was a case heard before a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on Montgomery and Alabama state bus segregation laws. The panel consisted of Middle District of Alabama Judge Frank Minis Johnson, Northern District of Alabama Judge Seybourn Harris Lynne, and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Rives. The main plaintiffs in the case were Aurelia Browder, Claudette Colvin, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith. Jeanetta Reese had originally been a plaintiff in the case, but intimidation by segregationists caused her to withdraw in February. She falsely claimed she had not agreed to the lawsuit, which led to an unsuccessful attempt to disbar Fred Gray for supposedly improperly representing her.
Fred David Gray is an American civil rights attorney, preacher, activist, and state legislator from Alabama. He handled many prominent civil rights cases, such as Browder v. Gayle, and was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1970, along with Thomas Reed, both from Tuskegee. They were the first black state legislators in Alabama in the 20th century. He served as the president of the National Bar Association in 1985, and in 2001 was elected as the first African-American President of the Alabama State Bar.
Mary Burnett Talbert was an American orator, activist, suffragist and reformer. In 2005, Talbert was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
The Women's Political Council (WPC), founded in Montgomery, Alabama, was an organization that formed in 1946 that was an early force active in the civil rights movement that was formed to address the racial issues in the city. Members included Mary Fair Burks, Jo Ann Robinson, Maude Ballou, Irene West, Thelma Glass, and Euretta Adair.
Aurelia Shines Browder Coleman was an African-American civil rights activist in Montgomery, Alabama. In April 1955, almost eight months before the arrest of Rosa Parks in the same city and a month after the arrest of Claudette Colvin, she was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white rider while she was in the "Whites Only Area". She refused to move to the "Colored Area" thus leading to her arrest.
The civil rights movement (1865–1896) aimed to eliminate racial discrimination against African Americans, improve their educational and employment opportunities, and establish their electoral power, just after the abolition of slavery in the United States. The period from 1865 to 1895 saw a tremendous change in the fortunes of the Black community following the elimination of slavery in the South.
On the Bus with Rosa Parks is a book of poems by Rita Dove. Rosa Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has called her "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement".
Erica Garner-Snipes was an American activist who advocated for police reform, particularly in the use of force during arrests. Garner became involved in activism following the 2014 murder of her father, Eric Garner, after a New York City police officer placed him in a lethal chokehold during an arrest.
Susie McDonald, also known as Miss Sue, was an African American activist who served as one of the plaintiffs in the bus segregation lawsuit Browder v. Gayle (1956) in Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested for violating bus segregation law on October 21, 1955. She was a widow at the time, in her seventies, walked with a cane, and was light-skinned enough to be mistaken for white by bus operators, though she enjoyed correcting this misconception. Her husband Tom had done railroad work, and she received his pension.
Dr. Rosa Slade Gragg was an American activist and politician. She founded the first black vocational school in Detroit, Michigan; and was the advisor to three United States presidents. She was inducted in 1987 into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.
Tracey Baptiste is a children's horror author from the Caribbean who uses folk stories in her novels.
Booker T. Washington School (1948–1970) was a primary school in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S.. It was at 632 South Union Street, and was preceded by Swayne College which had closed in 1937. The school building was demolished in 1948 to make way for Booker T. Washington High School, Montgomery's first high school for African American students.
