Rosa Parks

CALIFORNIA CODES

PENAL CODE

SECTION 203-206.1

COUNT 1 -- PC 205. A person is guilty of aggravated mayhem when he or she

unlawfully, under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to

the physical or psychological well-being of another person,

intentionally causes permanent disability or disfigurement of another

human being or deprives a human being of a limb, organ, or member of

his or her body. For purposes of this section, it is not necessary

to prove an intent to kill. Aggravated mayhem is a felony punishable

by imprisonment in the state prison for life with the possibility of

parole.

She helped stop discrimination.

She was on a bus, which during those times black people had to give up their seats if a white person wanted it. Most black people would have to sit in the back and without a seat, and when someone came and wanted the seat, she said No. They called the police and she was arrested. This news was heard by Martin Luther King Jr. who rallied many many people to start a petition by not riding the buses. Eventually the bus transportation went very low on money, that they decided they would allow white and black people to be able to sit wherever they want on the bus.
Rosa Parks had a long history of working for civil rights, as a member of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). She is best known for inspiring the Montgomery (Alabama) Bus boycott in 1955. The buses were segregated and black people were expected to sit at the back and always give up their seat to a white person. Rosa Parks was a seamstress and she was exhausted after a long day of work. She got on the bus and sat down, refusing to give up her seat to a white person. This courageous act of civil disobedience was a punishable offense in the south, and she was jailed, which outraged her supporters. They decided it was time to boycott all the buses until segregation was ended.

The US Supreme Court never heard Rosa Parks' case. Ms. Parks was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct on December 1, 1955, jailed overnight, and released the next day on $100 bond. She appeared before judge John B. Scott in Montgomery Municipal Court on December 4, and was fined $10 plus $4 court costs. Although her attorney, Fred Gray, immediately filed an appeal, he realized the Parks' case could be tied up in Alabama state courts for years.

Although Parks' case didn't go to the Supreme Court, her experience mobilized the African-American community to organize a bus boycott, depriving the city of their economic support and attracting a national audience. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., played an important role in organizing and motivating the community.

Meanwhile, attorney Fred Gray and his colleague, Charles Langford, consulted with NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyers Robert Carter and Thurgood Marshall about a plan of action. Both Carter and Marshall had been lead counsel on the cases consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education, (1954). Marshall had argued for Brown's side before the US Supreme Court in 1952 and 1953 (the decision was released in May of 1954), and had succeeded in ending legal segregation in public schools.

The four attorneys decided a strategy similar to the one in Brown would be most appropriate for pursuing the bus segregation issue. Gray approached Aurelia Browder and three other women, Claudette Colvin, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith, who had also experienced abuse from the Montgomery bus system, and convinced them to become plaintiffs in a federal civil action law suit against the city and Mayor W. A. Gayle.

On February 1, 1956, Fred Gray filed suit in US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, seeking a permanent injunction against the city's bus segregation policy. On June 4, 1956, the three-judge panel reviewing Browder v. Gayle (142 F. Supp. 707 (1956)) declared segregation unconstitutional by a vote of 2-1, determining that the "separate but equal" precedent established in Plessy v. Ferguson, (1896) "... can no longer be safely followed as a correct statement of the law." While this followed the Court's thinking in Brown v. Board of Education, (1954), only the single dissenting judge cited the case, claiming Brown only addressed public education, and left the "separate but equal" doctrine intact in other areas of life.

The city of Montgomery appealed the decision on June 5, but on November 13, 1956, the US Supreme Court denied the city's petition, affirming the District Court ruling without issuing a written opinion. Racial segregation on buses operating within state boundaries was outlawed, and the city of Montgomery received an official court order to integrate buses on December 20, 1956.

The court order brought an end to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 381 days.

Browder v. Gayle, (1956) may have provided the legal impetus for change, but Rosa Parks' courage and dignity catalyzed the national Civil Rights movement.

For more information about Browder v. Gayle, (1956) and other related cases, see Related Questions and Related Links, below.