WEBVTT - Selects: Rosa Parks: Agent of Change 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:02.120 Hi, everybody, Chuck here. 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:06.080 I hope you're all having some cereal or toaster pastries, 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:10.640 or maybe a bagel, maybe an egg sandwich, maybe some 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:11.840 overnight oats. 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:16.759 Maybe some bacon, maybe some back bacon. 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:18.840 Maybe it depends on where you are in the world 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.120 what kind of bacon you're eating, because we all call 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:23.279 it bacon, and it means a different thing wherever you 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.040 are at any rate, I hope you're enjoying some breakfast, 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:29.280 and you should listen to this episode while you eat breakfast. 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:34.240 From February twenty second, twenty eighteen. Rosa Parks Colon, agent 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:43.000 of change, but a great woman in American history. Welcome 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:51.480 to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.160 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:59.000 Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. So it's 0:00:59.040 --> 0:00:59.840 Stuff you should know. 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:03.360 It's a podcast, clean studio version. 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:06.520 I don't know, it feels a little weird in here, like, uh, 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:09.400 I think it's too good for us or something, you 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:09.880 know what I mean. 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.240 Yeah, just so you folks know, Jerry tests a couple 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.800 of the editor engineers here with coming in and cleaning 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.640 up the pile of spaghetti that used to flow from 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.360 the back of her workstation. Nice, not that it was 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:26.480 Jerry's fault. And she said, clean up my mess. 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.680 Well she clapped twice in rapid secession. 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:34.920 They know what that means. Right, looks good though, it does. 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:38.360 But now we actually have room to put stuff, so 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:39.559 we should put some stuff in here. 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:42.520 I agree. It's a little bear. 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.880 A papa's on right there, that'd be nice. I don't know. Well, 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:48.080 we could put a small papas on. 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:50.520 Most people don't realize, but this place is lousy with 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:54.080 Ikea lamps, I mean everywhere, and the cheapest ones like 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.480 they're one of them's on fire right now? Yeah that one? 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:03.720 Oh yeah, smoldering, it's smoldering. Still fire, Chuck, speaking of fire. Yes, 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:06.760 you want to know somebody who had some fire in 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:13.400 her more than most people realize. Rosa Parks, who is 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:17.960 now one of my all time heroes because before the 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:20.440 Rosa Parks I knew again it was like the Harriet 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:24.480 Tubman episode. Learned about her in school. She was a 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:28.120 great American respector reviewer her. Here's why she didn't give 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.120 up her seat on the bus. No, like not only 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:35.240 is that like just the tip of the Iceberg. It 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:39.600 wasn't until about the last five or so years. I 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:42.880 think about the last four years, they're like a full 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.480 picture of this woman and who she was and what 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.880 she stood for and what drove her emerged, not just 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:52.040 to the public in general, but to historians, even because 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:55.920 her personal papers were basically held up in auction for 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:58.320 years and years and years, and now now that they've 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:02.120 been donated for like ten years to the Library of Congress, Yeah, 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:04.320 we're starting to get a clear picture of her. And 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:08.840 she was even more worth revering than people knew before. 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:10.400 Yeah. I mean, I think. 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:16.160 What the story isn't is Rosa Parks was just a 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:18.880 quiet lady who was super tired on the bus one day, 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:20.200 so she didn't want to get up. 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:21.280 Her dogs were yapping. 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:23.000 Yeah, not true. 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:26.040 And she even makes a point in her personal paper saying, 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.280 I was forty two years old. I was no more 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:32.799 tired than I was after any day at work. But 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:35.280 what I was tired of was being told to get 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:37.800 up by a white bus driver to make room for 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:38.640 a white passenger. 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:41.400 Right. That was not My dogs weren't barking. 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:45.880 Right, So she she I think one of the reasons 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.680 why she was kind of whittled down into this woman 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:52.920 who was just tired and wasn't going to give up 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:54.960 her seat because she shouldn't have had to in the 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.640 first place. And then she was a very meek, quiet person. 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:02.600 Also was another way that she was drawn. I think 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.560 one of the reasons why she was whittled into that 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:10.280 package was because she became an icon for the civil 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:12.840 rights movement. And one of the things that the civil 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.120 rights movement had to do, for better or worse, was 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:19.400 to get the establishment, both white and black, on the 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.960 side of the civil rights movement, which was a movement 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:27.240 of agitation. And if you agitated at the time, this 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:31.040 is the Jim Crow era that made trouble. This wasn't 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:33.039 like just trouble like people are going to yell at 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:37.040 you on Twitter. This was trouble like the cops might 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.720 arrest you for some made up infraction and then beat 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:41.720 and rape you on the way to the jail, and 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.400 then you would end up in the prison system. Kind 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.840 of trouble like. This is the kind of trouble that 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:49.359 a woman who refused to give up her seat on 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:53.000 the bus faced it at this time. So the idea 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:57.159 of taking a woman who was I guess palatable to 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.880 as many people as possible and saying, look at this woman, 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:04.880 we need to protect this woman's rights and do what's right. 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:07.760 I think that's why she got kind of whittled down 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.680 into that. But if you're looking back now, historically, there 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:13.760 was so much more to her than just that, and 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:15.840 she was certainly not meek and mild. 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.520 Yeah, I mean, distilling the story down for school books 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:23.679 is one thing, but like, I'm glad now that people 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:25.080 can get a more robust picture. 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:25.960 Yeah. 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:28.280 So a lot of this comes from a website called 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:32.320 Great Black Heroes dot Com had a really good, lengthy article. 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:35.960 And then also I want to shout out a book 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:40.040 series called Little People, Big Dreams, And it's a kids 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:42.719 book series that we've been reading to my daughter. In fact, 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:44.400 it's kind of all she wants to read right now. 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:48.520 And they are on great women in history and kind 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:52.760 of brutally honest to be reading to kids. But they didn't. 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:56.200 It's kind of cool they weren't. They didn't whitewash anything. 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:02.159 It's sort of like, uh, Maya Angelo was not treated 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:04.719 well by white people, Like you read that to your kid, 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:08.240 and Rosa Parks is one. And then there's a Frieda Colo, 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:12.520 Coco Chanel, Amelia Earhart, Mary Currie, Aga Christi, and more. 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.640 But but it's pretty brutal, like they draw Amelia air Hearts, 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:18.800 skeleton on the beach. Kind of brutal. 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:19.159 You know what. 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:21.760 That's the only one we haven't gotten to yet because 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:25.120 every night it's read Frida, Read Frida. Really, but it's 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.320 literally like Frieda Colo is lying in the street after 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:32.440 she gets hit by a taxi and she's bloody and 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.040 her legs don't work again after since. So, I mean, 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.000 it's pretty brutal stuff, but I don't know, it's kind 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:39.400 of cool, like kids can read the stuff and digest it. 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:39.720 I think. 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.719 Sure it's a good way to begin them on the 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:44.680 path toward true stories. 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.240 And to sharpen them to like a razor's edge at 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:47.840 a young. 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:49.120 Age, you know, look out for taxis. 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:52.440 Yeah, that's good. You know, that's good advice at any age. 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.640 All right, So Rosa Parks, let's go back to where 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:59.920 she was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February fourth, nineteen 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:04.520 thirteen two. While she was born Rosa Louise McCauley to 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:09.320 James and Leonora McAuley, who were a carpenter and school teacher, respectively. 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:14.880 Right, her parents split, I guess she I don't know 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:17.200 how old she was. I guess she was younger than six, 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:19.640 but her father went to go look for work up north, 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:22.320 and her mom wanted to stay in the South, so 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:24.480 she and her mom and her brother moved in with 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:29.000 her mother's parents. Her grandparents and her grandfather played a 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:33.400 really distinct role in shaping her because she moved in 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:35.640 with them when she was, like I said, around six, 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.880 and at the time in this place Pine Level, which 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:42.280 is outside of Montgomery, Alabama, there was a lot of 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:45.680 clan violence, a lot of violence against blacks of the 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:49.960 hands of the Ku Klux Klan, and her grandfather was 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.320 not having it. He was actually he was the son 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.600 of a slave woman and a slave owner, so he 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:02.640 was I believe half white. He was a slave himself. 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:06.480 He had an owner at a young age who really 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:09.920 brutally mistreated him, tried to starve him for a little bit. 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:14.920 And her grandfather developed what she called a very intense 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.400 passionate hatred for white people and definitely im part of 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:22.000 that to his daughters and his granddaughter grandchildren. Wouldn't let 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:25.000 his grandchildren play with white kids, didn't let his daughters 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:28.840 work for white families. He was very much and it 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:33.800 sounds like pretty well founded against white people, and definitely 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.400 some of that rubbed off on Rose. At the very least, 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:41.840 her eyes were opened to just how unjust the system 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:43.760 was at the time when she was growing up. 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.280 Well, yeah, and just it wasn't even just through his eyes. 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.000 Like she went to a segregated school that she had 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:52.480 to walk to. White students were picked up and bussed 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:57.000 to the school. She went to an elementary school called 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:00.800 the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, cool School. It was 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:08.600 created by some northern white Northerners to basically try and 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:12.199 foster education in these more rural black communities in the South, 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.760 and that didn't go over well educating kids, so that 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:17.439 school was burned down twice. 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:20.400 And then couple that with all the you. 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.719 Know, influence from her grandfather, and it's no surprise that 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.760 Rosa Parks from a very very early age was an activist. 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.440 So and being an activist, we're talking like from age 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:37.320 six onward, right, So she dropped out a school, which 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:39.920 would have been a huge turning point. She had to 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:41.559 take care of her grandmother, and then I think her 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.720 mom later on because they both fell ill and she 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:49.000 met I think at age seventeen or eighteen, and then 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:53.000 later on, at age nineteen, married her husband, Raymond Parks, 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.199 and he encouraged her to go back and finish school 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:58.800 and she did. That was a huge move because she 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:03.080 was very much meant to be an educated person. So 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.520 the fact that she met Raymond was a huge influence 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.640 in that respect. He was also a big influence on 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:11.760 her because she said that he was the first activist, 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:15.480 like real activist, that she ever met. And I believe 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.160 this was even before the NAACP was in town. This 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:22.319 guy was like a grassroots activist and he and his 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.160 group were basically armed. Do you remember in the Black 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.640 Panthers episode where like the whole idea of arming yourself 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.160 came out of the South. This guy was, like Raymond 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:36.600 Parks was one of the real deal people who originated that, 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:43.280 and he and the group of activists that he he 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.880 met with would they would all come to the house 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:50.840 and everyone would have a gun. And apparently Rosa Parks 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:52.920 said sometimes there were so many guns on the table 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:55.040 that she didn't have any place to set the refreshments 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.120 during these meetings. But these meetings weren't like, you know, 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:00.400 how are we going to get white people back? It 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:02.319 was how are we going to protect like the Scottsboro 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:07.360 Boys from false rape accusations. He was an early pre 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:09.679 NAACP activist in Montgomery. 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:12.760 Yeah, and later on was a member of the NAACP. 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:15.839 We should do a show on the Scottsboro Boys at 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:18.880 some point. It's too much to get into here, but 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:23.040 the short version is a group of black men on 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:26.480 a train were accused of rape by two white women 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:31.320 who just made up this story. Basically went to trial 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:35.880 a few times and well, you know what, we'll save 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.680 the outcome, okay, because there are all kinds of outcomes 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:40.120 because it went to trial so many times. 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:42.960 So she did finish high. 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:46.319 School, and she became involved along with her husband in 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.520 the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and worked as their 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:54.480 secretary for fourteen years. So not only was she an activist, 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:59.359 but she was involved in service of these organizations. 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:02.320 She worked for them like whatever you need done, I 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:02.719 will do. 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:07.320 And anyone who's ever volunteered like knows that I guess 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:10.240 foot soldiers, for lack of a better term, are some 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:12.720 of the most important people to like in the Black 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.959 Panthers episode, when you know, the women didn't get nearly 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.960 the recognition they should have gotten for just keeping that 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:20.720 organization running on time. 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:22.920 So, but she was more than a volunteer though. She 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:27.000 had some really some jobs with some real gravity. Like 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:32.800 she was an investigator of sexual assault of black women 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.960 by white men, which is a very dangerous thing to 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:41.720 do because you're going to like interview witnesses to crimes 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.800 that aren't being prosecuted because they're perpetrated by white people. 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:50.720 She was a Justice for Prisoner advocate. She did a 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:54.760 lot of like really important stuff. And as she was 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:59.360 doing this stuff as the secretary for the LOCALAACP, she 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:03.400 was also making contacts that would later become really important 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.959 in this nascent civil rights movement that largely grew out 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:10.360 of the Montgomery bus boycott we're going to talk about. 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:12.800 I had no idea how big of an event it was. 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:15.880 I knew it was big, but I didn't realize how 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.040 far reaching the effects of it were. 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:22.160 Oh yeah, And another kind of important thing happened to 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:26.079 her as far as integration goes, is she got a 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.120 job type job at Maxwell Air Force Base for a 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.520 little while, which because it was a federal institution, was 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:36.440 integrated and this was the first time that she had 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:40.880 first time she had worked in it, or basically been 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.840 in a professional integrated atmosphere. And that along with the 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.439 Highlander Folk School, which is maybe we should do a 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:51.040 show on that too. In nineteen fifty five, she went 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.880 to a meeting a workshop at the Highlander Folks School 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:56.360 and this is in the Hills of Tennessee and it 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:59.480 is still open today as the Highlander Research and Education Center, 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:01.600 not in that original building, but. 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:06.000 It was just this great folks school where they prepared kids. 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:10.679 For activism, workers tried to get people involved in civil rights. 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:13.880 And she actually got sponsored by the white couple that 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:18.840 she worked for to go to these meetings at mon Eagle, Tennessee. 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:21.960 So that Maxwell Air Force basically mentioned. One of the 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.200 things she later said, I think they found in her 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.520 papers was a description of like because it was an 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.880 integrated base. The bus service on base was integrated as well, 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:35.560 So she would be riding next to a white friend 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:38.480 on the bus on base, and then once they would 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:40.080 get off of the bus on base and get onto 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:42.400 a city bus, they would have to stop their conversation 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:44.560 and get into the different sections, the white section and 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.360 the colored section, and that was just the reality of it. 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:52.080 And one thing that has really come through from her 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:59.440 papers is that she made a conscious decision to never 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:03.440 normally cannot be like, well that's just how it is. Yeah, 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:07.640 that's just life. That she would never let herself do that. Instead, 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:11.440 it was this is messed up. This has to be changed. 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:16.600 She was able to get through her day with this knowledge, 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:18.480 but she was never like this is normal or this 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:19.040 is okay. 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:20.600 Yeah, I mean she said it required. 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.360 I think the quote was a lot of mental gymnastics 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:25.840 just to survive day to day as a black person 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:29.040 in America. So in other words, yeah, not accept it 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:31.960 and do everything I can to wrap my head around 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:33.800 what I can do moving forward. 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:35.920 Should we take a break? 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.600 Yeah, man, all right, take a break and we'll come 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:42.040 back and we will start on December first, nineteen fifty five. 0:15:42.160 --> 0:16:07.040 Very important day, all right. So it's December first, nineteen 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:11.200 fifty five. Rosa Parks is working as a seamstress at 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:13.920 the time at a department store. She gets off work 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.520 like she does every day, in Board's bus twenty eight 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:21.480 fifty seven Cleveland Avenue bus at about six o'clock and 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.240 Here's the deal with the buses at the time is 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:27.040 there were a certain amount of rows set aside for 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.720 white people, and then there was a sign that said, 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:32.520 you know, black people where they probably said colored people 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.520 back then can sit from here back. But that sign 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.480 could move, so as more white people get on the bus, 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.800 the bus driver gets up and moves that sign back 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:44.120 and says, all right, black folks, you got to get up, 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:46.520 get out of your seats because now the white section 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:49.920 is here, and just keep doing that until sensibly the 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.360 entire bus could be full of white people and they 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:53.640 just say, sorry, you all have to. 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:54.360 Get off, right. 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:56.640 Yeah, you either had to get up and move your seat. 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:58.840 If there were not seats left, you had to stand. 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.120 If there was no stand, you had to get off 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.439 the bus right. And then if the bus you were 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.760 getting on, if you were African American, if the white 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.840 section was already full, you had to get into the 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.080 front of the bus, pay, get off of the bus, 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:14.879 and get onto that back door. 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:17.320 You couldn't even walk through the white section right. 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:19.399 And then you know, you could take your seat in 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:23.680 the colored section. So there was a lot going on here. 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:30.040 At least half of this law was unwritten custom. Right, 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:33.560 The local ordinance in Montgomery, Alabama said that buses had 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:35.800 to be segregated. There was a white section and there 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.760 was a colored section. They put it right. All that 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.679 stuff about moving the sign, about getting up and like 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:44.359 having to leave the bus if there wasn't any standing 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:46.800 room for you, if more white people came on, all 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:49.800 of that was just customary. That was not law. That 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:53.639 was not the local ordinance, but it was so practiced 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:55.800 on a daily basis that it might as well have 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:56.240 been the. 0:17:56.240 --> 0:18:00.240 Law for sure. And that's really all that matters. As 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.320 if everyone was playing ball, that's what was going to happen. 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:07.199 Yeah, because the courts would even prosecute as if you 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:09.879 had broken the law, right, if you had not actually 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.600 broken the law, but had broken this custom. So yeah, 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:14.480 for all intentsive purposes, it was the law. 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:18.560 So the driver of that bus was one James Blake, 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.800 and Rosa had well, she had a long memory and 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:27.600 a previous incident with mister Blake twelve years previous, nineteen 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.119 forty three. She had paid her fare, and like you 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:32.280 were talking about, with the fact that they couldn't even 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:34.359 walk through the white section, he said, you got to 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:38.720 get off the bus. Go around to the back, forced her, well, 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:40.080 she had already gotten on, said no, you got to 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:43.760 re enter on the rear. She got out and he 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:46.760 was like psych closed the door and drove off with 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:47.400 her bus fare. 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:49.600 Right, Yeah, she had already paid. Yeah, that was the 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:51.160 nineteen forty three incident, and. 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.320 She remembered twelve years later who James Blake was. 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:57.800 I would probably not forget that bus driver. So on 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:01.960 this day she got on and she took her seat 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:07.520 in the colored section, and when she sat down again, 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:11.840 she was behind the sign. And I guess after a 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:14.600 couple of stops, and think about this, man, imagine riding 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.640 the bus. Let's say you have like seven stops. Think 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:19.480 about that pit that would be in your stomach on 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:21.479 a daily basis, Like, am I gonna have to get up? 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.040 I'm gonna have to be humiliated? I am I gonna 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:25.560 have to give up my seat to a white person? 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:29.160 Because even if somebody who was told that they had 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:31.400 to get up because a white person needed to sit there, 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:36.280 even if they just kind of quietly complied, that doesn't 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:38.920 get the point across how they were feeling. Right, then 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:42.719 anybody would be humiliated by that. And I read that 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.280 one of the reasons why buses, not just in Montgomery, 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:48.719 but throughout the segregated South, they were kind of flash 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:52.240 points because they were people were in such close quarters. 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.200 The racism was right up in your face in front 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:57.720 of a bunch of other people, so the humiliation was 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:01.920 even more pronounced. Right. So Rosa Park gets on the bus. 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:05.240 She takes her seat in the colored section, and after 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:09.680 a few stops, some white people got on and the driver, 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.560 James Blake, said that it was time for them to move, 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:16.840 that these white people needed a seat, and he was 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:20.640 moving the sign back at least one row. 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:21.639 Yeah. 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.360 So at this point there's one white dude left without 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:29.600 a seat, so as his custom, he made four black 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.080 folks get out of their two seats on that row. 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:34.080 Everyone had to move back because there had to be 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:36.120 a whole new white row just for this one guy. 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.919 Three of the passengers got up and moved. Rosa Parks 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:42.880 just slid over to the window seat and sat there. 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:45.000 And he said, are you going to get up? And 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:47.399 she said no, I'm not. He said, well, if you 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:49.000 don't stand up, I'm going to have to call the 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:51.720 police and have you arrested. And she said, you may 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:56.119 do that. I know, man, I mean, just so brave. 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:59.320 And so the police did come, she was arrested, she 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:06.040 was booked, charged with disorderly conduct, and bailed out by 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:09.960 Clifford RR and Edgar Nixon, who were the local president 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.960 of the chapter of the NAACP. 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:16.200 At the time. Right. So, so she's out, at least temporarily. 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:18.480 Yeah, the next evening, so she spent the night in jail. 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:22.760 I don't I didn't run across any any statements or 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:26.840 any kind of evidence that she was like physically mistreated 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:31.520 or verbally abused by the police. But that seems to 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:34.760 be unusual for people who were arrested for not giving 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:36.080 up their seats on the bus. 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:38.200 What that she was not mistreated? 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:38.600 Right? 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:40.879 Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they didn't throw out the 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:41.520 welcome Matt. 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:46.919 No, you know, no, but this is actually this is 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:48.879 noworthy here. Do you want to talk about how she 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:52.240 was not the first person that year, not the first 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:54.760