Rosa Parks
...lieved in. In Quiet Strength, (Zondervan Publishing House, 1994) a book later written by Rosa Parks, she explains, "Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it. I kept thinking about my mother and my grandparents, and how strong they were. I knew there was a possibility of being mistreated, but an opportunity was being given to me to do what I had asked of others." Her protest stimulated a growing movement to desegregate public transportation and marked a historic turning point in the African American battle for civil rights. After Rosa parks arrest, African Americans wanted to continue the civil rights movement that Rosa established. Blacks through out the entire town of Montgomery attended a meeting at which they decided to boycott the use of buses as transportation. As a result, the bus company lost much of their business because blacks made up the majority of those who used buses. Their boycott lasted an entire year until finally the courts ruled that segregation in public transportation was illegal. Consequently, during their fist meeting in Montgomery, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. surfaced as a civil rights movement leader. He along with other African-American community leaders held another meeting to organize future action. They named their new organization, the Montgomery Improvement Association and Dr. King was elected as its president. Soon After, King urged African Americans to use peaceful means to achieve their goals. In 1960, a group of black and white college students organized the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to help in the civil rights movement. They joined with young people from the SCLC, CORE, and the NAACP in staging sit-ins, boycotts, marches, and freedom rides. During the early 1960's, the combined efforts of the civil rights groups ended discrimination in many public places, including restaurants, hotels, theaters, and cemeteries. In 1957, Congress passed the first civil rights law since the Reconstruction. The act created a civil rights division in the Department of Justice to ...