#OTD in 1955. Montgomery, Alabama. African-American Rosa Parks, a civil rights activist, is traveling in a city bus when the bus driver, James Blake makes an unusual demand (1/7) 
With the "whites " section of the bus filled up, Blake orders Parks to vacate her seat in the "colored" section for a white man. Parks and Blake had old history. In 1943, Parks had boarded a bus from the front door when the driver told her to get down (2/7)
Since the "colored" section was usually at the rear, the driver asked Rosa Parks to board from the rear. As Parks got down to board again from the rear door, the bus drove off without her. That driver was also James Blake (3/7)
This incident had left a profound mark on Rosa Parks. Encouraged by her husband, she became active in the civil rights movement. Back to 1st Dec, 1955, even as James Blake announced he was re-designating the "colored" section, Parks refused to budge (4/7)
Rosa Parks later recollected, "(he) asked if I was going to stand up, and I said, 'No, I'm not.' And he said, 'Well, if you don't stand up, I'm going to have to call the police and have you arrested.' I said, 'You may do that'" (5/7)
While Rosa Parks wasn't the 1st person to resist racial segregation in public transport in the US, her courageous stance that day triggered the Montgomery bus boycott - that went on for over a year till late-December, 1956 (6/7)
The strike was withdrawn when the federal ruling in the Browder v. Gayle case took effect, and led to a US Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional (7/7)
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