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When Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger 60 years ago today, the police arrested her. She was one of 100 people whom the police charged with violating national segregation laws.
As the officers arrested her, Parks asked them, “Why do you push us around?” One replied, “I don’t know, but the law is the law and you’re under arrest.”
Here is the police report, which says that Parks was “sitting in the white section of the bus, and would not move back.”
Rosa Parks was arrested 60 years ago today for not giving up her bus seat. This is the police report. #busboycott60 http://pic.twitter.com/fFKpkhgeGw
— SPLC (@splcenter) December 1, 2015
Prior to her most famous action, Parks challenged white supremacy for decades. She joined the local chapter of the NAACP in 1943 and served as branch secretary, pushed for voter registration, supported black victims of violence, and fought for women’s rights as well as desegregation of schools and city spaces.
Parks understood the power of speaking up against oppression. As she describes in the recently opened Rosa Parks collection at the Library of Congress, she had a “life history of being rebellious.”
The civil rights hero is now an American legend and may become the new face of the $10 bill.
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