What evidence does Rosa Parks offer to show that the bus driver who put her off the bus in 1943 was acting against the law?

Answer 1

In 1900, Montgomery had passed a city ordinance for the purpose of segregating passengers by race. Conductors were given the power to assign seats to accomplish that purpose; however, no passengers would be required to move or give up their seat and stand if the bus was crowded and no other seats were available. Over time and by custom, however, Montgomery bus drivers had adopted the practice of requiring black riders to move whenever there were no white only seats left.

In Montgomery, the first four rows of bus seats were reserved for white people. Buses had "colored" sections for black people-who made up more than 75% of the bus system's riders-generally in the rear of the bus. These sections were not fixed in size but were determined by the placement of a movable sign. Black people could sit in the middle rows, until the white section was full. Then they had to move to seats in the rear, stand, or, if there was no room, leave the bus. Black people were not allowed to sit across the aisle from white people. The driver also could move the "colored" section sign, or remove it altogether. If white people were already sitting in the front, black people could board to pay the fare, but then had to disembark and reenter through the rear door. Sometimes, the bus departed before the black customers who had paid could make it to the back entrance.

Parks had her first run-in on the public bus on a rainy day in 1943, when the bus driver, James F. Blake (the same one who had her arrested for refusing to move from her seat in 1955), demanded that she get off the bus and reenter through the back door. As she began to exit by the front door, she dropped her purse. Parks sat down for a moment in a seat for white passengers to pick up her purse. The bus driver was enraged and barely let her step off the bus before speeding off. She had paid for her seat and then the service she had paid for was not provided. The bus driver had thus violated the law.