Other People who Participated in the Civil Rights Movement

Other People who participated in the Civil Rights Movement

Besides Martin Luther King Jr. there were many people who participated in the Civil Rights Movement. Some of these people were Ruby Bridges and Rosa Parks. You have probably heard of Rosa Parks known as the “mother of the civil rights movement”. She joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1943. Then on December 1, 1955 she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person and was arrested. As a result of her courageous action Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Improvement Association organized a bus boycott that started on December 5, 1955. Because African-Americans were 70 percent of the people who rode the bus this boycott was effective. On November 13, 1956 the Supreme Court said that having segregated busses was unconstitutional. Then on December 21, 1956 the bus boycott ended.

Ruby Bridges was a six-year old African-American girl who helped integrate the schools. She was sent to a white school called the William Frantz Elementary School, which was in New Orleans. The parents of many of the white children that went to her school pulled their children out of the school when she came. Only one of the teachers at the school, Barbara Henry from Boston, Massachusetts, was willing to teach her. Often Ruby had to walk to school through angry mobs of white people escorted by federal marshals. As Ruby said, “driving up I could see the crowd, but living in New Orleans, I actually thought it was Mardi Gras. There was a large crowd of people outside of the school. They were throwing things and shouting, and that sort of goes on in New Orleans at Mardi Gras.” A white woman told her, “We’re going to poison you until you choke to death.” After this, Ruby refused to eat anything but packaged foods. She was very courageous though as a federal marshal who escorted her to school said, “She just marched along like a little soldier.” Because Ruby went to a white school her father lost his job. Her grandparents, who were sharecroppers on a farm in Mississippi, and had been working there for 25 years were told to leave because Ruby Bridges was going to a white school in Louisiana. Then the next year, William Frantz Elementary School was completely integrated and all the white children came back.

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Martin Luther King Jr.

Why do we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day?