The Montgomery Bus Boycott - Beginning of the Civil Rights Movement

Nowadays, we are living in a world full of the racism that leaves us without hope in the future, but, if we look at the past, we can see all the changes that have been made and all the injustice that people like Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr. had to fight to destroy. These two people I just named were part of a movement, The Civil Rights Movement. This movement is not only a big part of the African Americans’ history but a fundamental part of the history of The United States. To understand all the things that are happening now and all the rights that have been given to black people, we have to understand what defines this movement and the beginnings, The Montgomery boycotts, the start of a change, the start of the fight for freedom. To understand everything, first, we have to explained what do we mean when we talk about this term. The Civil Rights Movement (sometimes called The American Civil Rights Movement) was a movement to end all kinds of racism that were legal at this time; we talk about racial discrimination and racial segregation, between others. The period in time when this movement was at its peak, according to experts in the field, started when the Montgomery bus boycott happened, led by Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr, and this Civil Rights movement finished with the tragic assassination of the last one we named. These two issues were shocking, but they are not the only key moments in this movement. Must be named moments as the assassination of Emmett Till in 1955, The Little Rock Crisis, or The Summer of Freedom in Mississippi, 1964.

But, apart from these moments, this movement has a tough background; things as the millions of black people enslaved in the South of the United States or the laws allowing to not let black people into restaurants or not have been able to use the same public services as white people. These things only made the anger of the black population increase and the desire of being free to grow. 1955, Rosa Parks, known as the mother of this movement, refused to give her seat on the bus to a white person, this simple act, the act of a black woman to not give her seat, got her arrested. This moment is key in the movement, as Martin Luther King Jr. himself said “Mrs. Parks's arrest was the precipitating factor rather than the cause of the protest. The cause lay deep in the record of similar injustices”. This act was so important, that the boycott only ended when the local laws of segregation in Montgomery were abolished. They had to wait 381 days to make it, but they did it. This only gave people hope about the possibility of a change in society, and, little by little, was being made. This makes us think, how something so simple as a bus seat, could raise such a protest? Rosa parks answer it herself, “I’m tired of being treated like a second-class citizen.” She was tired, tired of being treated like an inferior. This feeling was not only hers but millions of black people. This was the start of a movement.

Martin Luther King Jr. started his fight for civil rights after seeing what Rosa Parks did. He wanted to help and to show the voice of the people after this, so he started the Montgomery Bus Boycott. He was arrested because of it, but his fight had made effect, as I said before, they achieved their objective: to abolished the segregation laws. Thanks to this boycott, Luther King join the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) an organization made to fight for civil rights. So, the importance of the Montgomery Boycott was not only because it was the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, but it was also the creation of one of the most important activists in history, Martin Luther King Jr. He probably would have been part of the fight either way, because that was his nature, he wanted the change, but this was the thing he needed to start his career in this topic.

The Montgomery bus boycott was the beginning of a fight, a necessary fight, that could not wait any longer. The Civil Rights Movement was necessary, many people gave their lives because they believed in a change, in the possibility of a better world. Martin Luther King was assassinated because of his believes, the belief that all people are free and equal. His dream: “one day right there in Alabama little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” is now real, but he only saw it as a dream. This only shows us the power of fighting for what we believe, even if it means to give our life to it. And maybe we do not see now with all the things that are happening, but there are people still fighting for the rights that are still waiting to be given to black people because they are not equal yet, but it will be accomplished, with men like Martin Luther King or women like Rosa Parks, because there is still hope.