Rosa Parks: Agent of Change

April fourth, d C April five. St. Louis, Mayo and Cleveland, Ohio. Come out and see us. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. So it's Stuff you should know the podcast Clean Studio version. I know it feels a little weird in here, like, uh, like it's too good

for us or something, you know what I mean. Yeah, just so you folks know, Jerry Test a couple of the editor engineers here with coming in and cleaning up the pile of spaghetti that used to flow from the back of her workstation, not that it was Jerry's fault, and she said, clean up my mess. Well, she clapped twice in the whole. It looks good though, it does. But now we actually have room to put stuff, so

we should put some stuff in here. I agree. It's a little bear a papasan right, there would be nice. I don't know. Well, we could put a small papason. Most people don't realize. But this place is lousy with Ikea lamps, I mean everywhere, and the cheapest ones, like they're one of them is on fire right now? Yeah, that one, Yeah, smoldering, smoldering, still fire, chuck, speaking of fire, Yes, you want to know somebody who had some fire in

her more than most people realize. Rosa Parks, who is now one of my all time heroes because before the Rosa Parks I knew again it was like the Harriets Hubman episode. Learned about her in school. Um, she was a great American, respect her, revere her. Here's why she didn't give up her seat on the bus. No, like, not only is that like just the tip of the iceberg. It wasn't until about the last five or so years.

I think you know about the last four years, they're like a full picture of this woman and who she was, and like what she stood for and what drove her emerged not just to the public in general, but to two historians even because her personal papers were basically held up in auction for years and years and years. And now now that they've been donated for ten, like ten years to the Library of Congress, we're starting to get a clear picture of her, and she was even more

worth revering. And then people knew before. Yeah, I mean, I think the what the story isn't uh is Rosa Parks was just a quiet lady who was super tired on the bus one day, so she didn't want to get up. Her dogs were yapping. Yeah, not true. And she even makes a point in her personal papers saying I was forty two years old. Uh, I was no more tired than I was after any day at work.

But what I was tired of was being told to get up by a white bus driver to make room for a white passenger that was not My dogs weren't barking, right, so she um she I think one of the reasons why she was kind of whittled down into this this woman who was just tired and wasn't going to give up her seat because she shouldn't have had two in the first place. And then she was a very meek,

quiet person. Also is another way that she was drawn. Um. I think one of the reasons why she was whittled into that package was because she became an icon for the civil rights movement. And one of the things that the civil rights movement had to do, for better or worse, was to get uh, the establishment, both white and black, on the side of the civil rights movement, which was a movement of agitation. Um. And if you agitated at the time, this is the Jim Crow era that meant trouble.

This wasn't like just trouble like people are gonna yell at you on Twitter. This was trouble like the cops might arrest you for some made up in fraction and then be and rape you on the way to the jail, and then you would end up in the prison system kind of trouble like. This is the kind of trouble that a woman who refused to give up her seat

on the bus faced it at this time. Um. So, the idea of taking a woman who was I guess palatable to as many people as possible, and and saying, look at this woman, we need to protect this woman's rights and do what's right. Um. I think that's why she got kind of wood old down into that. But if you were looking back now historically she there's so much more to her than than just that, and she

was certainly not meek and mild. Yeah, I mean, distilling the story down for school books is uh is one thing, but like I'm glad now that people can get a more robust picture. Um. So a lot of this comes from a website called Great Black Heroes dot Com had a really good, lengthy article. Uh. And then also I want to shout out a book series called Little People, Big Dreams, And it's a kid's book series that we've been reading to my daughter. In fact, it's kind of

all she wants to read right now. And they are on great women in history and kind of brutally honest for to be reading to kids. But they didn't. It's kind of cool they weren't. They didn't whitewash anything. It's sort of like, uh, Maya Angelo was not treated well by white people, like you read that to your kid and Rosa Parks this one, and then there's Free to Carlo, Coco Chanel, Amelia Earhart, Mary Curie at Christie and more. But um, but it's pretty brutal, like they draw Amelia

Hearts Skeleton on the Beach, kind of brutal. You know what. That's the only one we haven't gotten to yet because every night it's read free to Read, freed To But it's literally like frieda Carlo is lying in the street after she gets hit by a taxi and she's bloody and her legs don't work again after. So, I mean, it's pretty brutal stuff, But I don't know, it's kind of cool, like kids can read the stuff and digest it.

I think it's a good way to begin them on the path towards true stories and to sharpen them to like a razor's edge at a young age, you know, look out for taxis. Yeah, that's good. You know, that's good advice at any age. All right, So Rosa Parks, Uh, let's go back to where she was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February four, nineteen thirteen. Uh too. While she was born Rosa Louise Macaulay to James and Leonora mcaulay, who

are a carpenter and school teacher respectively. Right, her parents split, I guess she I don't know how old she was. I guess she was younger than six, But her father went to go look for work up north, and her mom wanted to stay in the South, so she and her mom and her brother moved in with her mother's parents, her grandparents, and her grandfather played a really distinct role in shaping her because she moved in with him when she was, like I said, around six, and at the

time in this place Pine Level, which is outside of Montgomery, Alabama. Uh, there was a lot of clan violence, a lot of violence against blacks of the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, and Um, her grandfather was not having it. He was actually he was the son of a slave woman and slave owner, so he was um I believe half white. Uh he was. He was a slave himself. He had an owner UM at a young age who really brew really mistreated him, trying to starve him for a little bit.

And her grandfather developed, um what she called, a very intense passionate hatred for white people and definitely im part of that to his daughters and his granddaughter grandchildren, wouldn't let his grandchildren play with white kids, didn't let his daughters work for white families. He was very much UM and it sounds like pretty well founded against white people.

And definitely some of that rubbed off on Rose at the very least her eyes were opened to just how unjust the system was at the time when she was growing up. Well, yeah, and just it wasn't even just through his eyes. Like she went to a segregated school that she had to walk to. White students were picked up and bus to the school. Um. She went to UH an elementary school called the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls,

very cool school. It was created by some UH northern white Northerners to basically UM try and foster education in these more rural black communities in the South. And that didn't go over well educating kids, so that school was burned down twice. And then coupled that with all the you know, influence from her grandfather, and it's no surprise that Rosa Parks from a very very early age was UH was an activist. So and being an activist, we're talking like from age six onward, right, So she dropped

out of school, which would have been a huge turning point. Um. She had to take care of her grandmother and then I think her mom later on because they both fell ill. And she met I think age seventeen or eighteen, and then later on, at age nineteen, married her husband, Raymond Parks, and he encouraged her to go back and finished school and she did. It was a huge move because she was very much meant to be an educated person. So UM, the fact that she she met Raymond was a huge

influence in that respect. He was also a big influence on her because she said that he was the first activist, like real activist, that she ever met. And I believe this was even before the n double a CP was in town. This guy was like a grassroots activist. UH. And he and his group were basically armed. Do you remember in the Black Panthers episode where like the whole

idea of arming yourself came out of the South. Um. So this guy was like Raymond Parks was one of the the real deal people who originated that UM and he and the group of activists that he um he met with, UH would but they would all come to the house and everyone to have a gun. UH. And apparently Rosa Parks said sometimes there were so many guns on the table that she didn't have any place to

set the refreshments during these meetings. But these meetings weren't like, you know, how are we going to get white people back? It was how are we going to protect like the Scottsboro Boys from false rape accusations? Um, he was he was an early activists in Montgomery. Yeah, and later on was a member of the Inn Double A CP. Uh. We should do a show on the Scottsboro Boys at

some point. Uh, it's too much to get into here, but the short version is, um, a group of black men on a train were accused of rape by two white women who uh just made up the story. Basically went to trial a few times, and UM, well you know what, we'll save the outcome, okay, because they are all kinds of outcomes because it went to trial so many times. Um. So she did finish high school and she became involved along with her husband in the Montgomery chapter the in Double A CP and worked as their

secretary for fourteen years. So not only was she an activist, but she was um involved in in service of these organizations, like she worked for them, like whatever, you need done, I will do. And anyone who's ever volunteered like knows that, UM, I guess footch soldiers, for lack of a better term, are some of the most important people to like in the Black Panthers episode when you know, the women didn't get nearly the recognition they should have gotten for just

keeping that organization running on time. So but she was more than a volunteer though. She had some really some jobs with some real gravity. Like she was an investigator of UM sexual assault of Black women by white men UM, which is a very dangerous thing to do because you're going to like interview witnesses to crimes that aren't being prosecuted because they were perpetrated by white people. UM. She uh was Justice for Prisoner advocate. She did a lot

of like really important stuff. And as she was doing this stuff as the secretary for the local and WLE and double a CP, she was also making contacts that would later become really important in this nascent civil rights movement that large grew out of the Montgomery bus boycott we're going to talk about. I had no idea how big of a an event it was, but I didn't realize how far reaching the effects of it were oh yeah, uh.

And this another kind of important thing happened to her as far as integration goes, is she got a job type job at Maxwell Air Force Base for a little while, which, because it was a federal institution, was integrated. And this was the first time that she had um first time she had worked in a basically been in a professional integrated atmosphere. Uh. And that along with the Highlander Folk School, which is maybe we should do a show on that too, uh. In n she went to a meeting a workshop at

the Highlander Folks School. And this is in the hills of Tennessee. Uh. And it is still open today as the Highlander Research and Education Center. Uh, not in that original building, but um, it was just this great folk school where they prepared kids for activism. UM workers tried to get people involved in civil rights and she actually got sponsored by the white couple that she worked for, uh to um go to these meetings at mont Egal, Tennessee.

So and that Maxwell Air Force Base you mentioned. One of the things she later said, I think they found in her papers was a description of like because it was an integrated base, the bus service on base was integrated as well, so she would be riding next to like a white friend on the bus on base, and then once they would get off of the bus on base and get onto a city bus, they would have to stop their conversation and get into the different sections,

the white section in the colored section. And that was just the reality of it. Um. And one thing that has really come through from her papers is that she made a conscious decision to to never normalize that can not be like, well, that's just how it is, that's just life. That she would never let herself do that, and instead it was this is this is messed up. This has to be changed. Um. She was able to get through her day with this knowledge, but she was

never like this is normal or this is okay. Yeah, I mean she said it required I think quote was a lot of mental gymnastics just to survive day to day as a black person in America. Uh So in other words, yeah, not accept it and do everything I can to wrap my head around what I can do moving forward. Uh. Should we take a break? Yeah? Man, all right, take a break and we'll come back and we will um start on December one, very important day. Alright, So it's December one, five Rosa Parks is working as

a seamstress at the time at a department store. She gets off work like she does every day and boards bus Cleveland Avenue bus at about six o'clock h And here's the deal with the buses at the time, is uh, there were a certain amount of rows set aside for white people, and then there was a sign that said, you know, black people were They probably said colored people back then can sit from here back, but that sign could move, so as more white people get on the bus,

the bus driver gets up and moves that sign back and says, all right, black folks, you gotta get up, get out of your seats because now the white section is here, and just keep doing that until sensibly the entire bus could be full of white people and they just say, sorry, I'll have to get off. Right Yeah. You either had to get up and move your seat. If there were not seats left, you had to stand. If there was no standing room, you had to get

off the bus right um. And then if the bus you were getting on, if you were African American, if the white section was already full, you had to get into the front of the bus, pay, get off of the bus and get onto that back door. You couldn't even walk through the white section, right, and then you you know, you could take your seat in the colored section. So, um, there was a lot going on here. At least half

of this law was unwritten custom right. The local ordinance in Montgomery, Alabama said that busses had to be segregated. There was a white section and there was a colored section. They put it right. All that stuff about moving the sign, about getting up and like having to leave the bus if there wasn't any standing room for you if more white people came on, all of that was just customary. That was not law, That was not the local ordinance, but it was so practiced on a daily basis that

it might as well have been the law for sure. Um, And that's really all that matters is if everyone was playing ball, that's what was going to happen. Yeah, Because like the courts would even prosecute as if you had broken the law, if you had not actually broken the law, but had broken this custom. So yeah, for all intensive purposes, it was the law. So the driver of that bus was one James Blake, and Rosa had uh, well, she had a long memory and a previous incident with Mr

Blake twelve years previous, uh ninety three. She had paid her fair and like you were talking about with um, the fact that they couldn't even walk through the white section. He said, you gotta get off the bus, go around to the back. Uh forced her. Well, she had already gotten and said no, you gotta re enter on the rear. She got out and he was like psych, closed the door and drove off with her bus fare. Right, Yeah, she had already paid. Yeah that was and she remembered

twelve years later who James Blake was. I would probably not forget that bus driver. So on on this day she got on and um, she took her seat in the colored section and when she sat down a in she was behind the sign. And I guess after a couple of stops, and think about this man ament riding the bus and say you have like seven stops, think about that pit that would be in your stomach on a daily basis, Like, am I gonna have to get up?

I'm gonna have to be humiliated? I am I gonna have to give up my seat to a white person? Because even if somebody who was told that they had to get up because a white person needed to sit there, even if they just kind of quietly complied that that doesn't that doesn't get the point across how they were feeling. Right,

then anybody would be humiliated by that. And I read that one of the reasons why busses, not just in Montgomery, but throughout the segregated South, they were kind of flash points because they were people were in such close quarters. It was the racism was right up in your face in front of a bunch of other people, so the humiliation was even more pronounced. Right. So, so Rosa Park

gets on the bus. She takes her seat in the colored section, and after a few stops, some white people got on and the the driver, James blake Um, said that it was time for them to move, that these white people needed a seat, and uh he was moving the sign back at least one row. Yeah. So at this point, Um, there's one white dude left without a seat. Uh So, as his custom, he made four black folks get out of their two seats on that row. Everyone had to move back because there had to be a

whole new white road just for this one guy. Three of the passengers got up been moved. Rosa Parks just slid over to the window seat and sat there and he said, are you going to get up? And she said no, I'm not. He said, well, if you don't stand up, I'm gonna have to call the police and have you arrested. And she said you may do that. Aw, I don't know, man, I mean, just so brave. And

so the police did come. She was arrested, She was booked, charged with the disorderly conduct, and bailed out by Clifford der and Edgar Nixon, who were the local president of the the chapter of the Double A c P at the time. Right, So, um, she's out at least temporarily. Yeah, the next evening, so she spent the night in jail. I don't I didn't run across any any statements or any kind of evidence that she was like physically mistreated

or verbally abused by the police. Um, but that that seems to be unusual for people who were arrested for not giving up their seats on the bus. That she was not mistreated. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they didn't throwout the welcome at No. You no, but um, there's this is actually this is no worthy here. Do you want to talk about how she was not the first person that year, not the first woman to have been

arrested for not giving up her seat on the bus. Yeah. Sure, this is something I didn't realize, and I think a lot of people didn't realize this. But there were at least two other women in Montgomery who were arrested that same year. One was Claudette Colvin. She was fifteen at the time. She got pregnant afterwards. Um, but she was fifteen and uh, she in March was arrested for not giving up her seat on the bus. Um. She said

at the time she was scared to death. But she felt on one side, so journal Truth was holding her down and on the other side, Harriet Tubman was holding her down and she was not about to get up. So they took her off the bus and arrested her. And um, apparently she was ridiculed and treated rather roughly. Um. There was another woman. Her name was Mary Louise Smith. I believe she was eighteen at the time. She had been arrested, like uh in October, um for the same thing.

I didn't get the impression that she was necessarily treated roughly. But um. But Rosa Parks when she was arrested from what I can tell, she was treated like the the with the respect that would be afforded to a middle class black woman at the time in Montgomery, Alabama, which is to say, with maybe the slightest measure of respect, which is to say, she wasn't beaten on the way to jail. There's a book, by the way called Claudette Colvin Colin Twice Towards Justice from phil Who's or Who's?

And Uh, I think a lot of people these days are trying to shine a little light on some of the lesser known figures of the civil rights movement, and books are being written and stuff like that, which is pretty awesome. And she she was asked, Claudette Colvin was asked like, why why does she think it was Rosa Parks and not her? And she had a whole list of reasons and all of them are pretty legitimate. That you know, Rosa Parks was a very again, a palatable

person to a large swath of people. Uh. And more to the point, she was also fifteen, and the n double a CP didn't think that a fifteen year old was going to be the most reliable icon to kind of project into the national forefront. Yeah, not to say, um that a lot of people have said over the years that it was staged, so because they set Rosa Parks up or not set her up, but they picked

her to do this because she was palatable. They staged this whole thing to make which you know would have been fine, uh, if that's the way you want to kick start the bus boycott. But from all accounts, it was a in the moment decision. She said, I didn't know that I was gonna get arrested and then I was gonna sit down. It's just something that happened, and so so on the one hand, the people who say that no, this was staged, Um, the n Double A CP and even before then Double A CP was around.

Busses had been like a target of black activists in Montgomery in particular for decades. I think the first bus boycott was in nine and it wasn't even a bus. There was a trolley line as well as boycotted. So she and having already been the secretary of the N Double A c P and an activist herself for years by then, she must have been fully aware of the potential outcome, which proved to be the actual outcome from

her arrest for not giving up her seat. But the idea of saying that this was all staged, it does a couple of things. It's almost like, um, a casually racist way of just kind of diminishing it because it does two things. One, it takes away her bravery, because if if it was, if it was staged to make her own support the whole time, would have it would

have taken away a measure of fear um. And then secondly, it also makes the double A C P look kind of sneaky, like there's socially engineering stuff and then pretending like that's not the case. So I think by saying like, no, this was staged, it really undermines the reality of the situation,

which is that this brave woman said she'd had enough. Yeah, and you're right, she probably it probably occurred to her the ramifications of this, but I bet you anything in the moment, she was just like, Nope, nope, not getting up. That's what I understand, That's what she's always said. Yeah, So, um,

here's what happened from there. She was arrested, like I said, she gets out on bail um over that weekend, and a bunch of churches got together and they started talking boycott UM on the winter trial comes around as a group called the Women's Political Council, and they handed out thirty five thousand handbills that basically said, uh, please children, grown ups, don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off the buses on Monday. Let's really try

and make a difference here. Because it was I think at the time black people made up seventy of the passengers UM, so it could have a real impact on like the finances of the bus company. Yeah, and it just started out as a boycott for one day for the Monday following Rosa Parte's arrest, which was that happened on a Thursday. Uh, And they were just gonna do it for one day. But the the success of it was so surprising. I think they were hoping for like

fifty reduction. It turned out I saw both ninety and reduction in ridership by African Americans that day, and that's a big loss for the city bus line. Right. So it was such a success that they said, well, let's maybe let's keep this going and see what we can do with this. Because initially the demands of the Montgomery Bus boycott of n was that, Um. One of them was black black riders be treated with courtesy. Pretty low

hanging request. Um. Another one was that, uh, the the seats be given on a first come, first serve basis, which was the law, and that black people sit from back to front, White people sit from front to back. So they were still saying like, we can keep the segregation, but but people shouldn't have to give up their seats.

And then the last one was they wanted, um, black bus drivers to be hired to drive the predominantly African American routes so that that you didn't have to deal with an armed, yeah, and armed white bus driver because they were armed and they had basically police powers to enforce segregation on the bus. So the original boycott thing,

their demands were not extraordinarily radical. And when the boycott was a success on that first Monday, UM, they decided to extend it and they also decided maybe they should expand their demands a little more. So while all this is going on, she was she was found guilty on that Monday. She was fine ten bucks plus court costs of four dollars for fourteen dollars total, and said, uh, nope,

I'm gonna appeal this conviction. She challenged the basically she was what she was challenging was segregation in general, uh, not being constitutional, and that ended up being the argument that was, well, we'll get to the court case and how it escalated. But um, she was found guilty and UM. The other notable thing that happened was one Ralph David Abernathy and Dr Martin Luther King, who was young minister

in town of Dexter Avenue Baptist. Uh. He was elected president of what was called the m i A, the Montgomery Improvement Association, UM, which they formed because the success of the boycott. So you have this new organization. Uh. Then about a month later, UM, a month and a half, at the end of January, Martin Luther King's home was bombed. Um. Everyone was unharmed in the incident, but it really ramped up um the stakes of what was going on. Yeah,

well for sure. And the they apparently the Montgomery Improvement Association is credited with making the boycott successful. And the way that they made it successful was through a car pool they set up. They bought a bunch of station wagons and put them in the name of some of the black churches in town, and these these station wagons would basically recreate the bus routes. They drove pre predetermined routes UM and they were they were giving like twenty

thousand people arride every day. That's how successful this was. And they put such a crimp UH in the finances of the city bus line that had a couple of things happened. One, they had to lay off workers, closed down lines, raised their fares like it really hurt the city bus lines. And then secondly, the city and I believe maybe even the state sued the Montgomery Improvement Association

for for this boycott, which is apparently illegal under Alabama law. Yeah, they they sued against the car service specifically saying that the bus company had an exclusive franchise UH and they did get an injunction UH in November of nineteenfty six. But all of this comes out of the fact that in like thirty something years earlier in Alabama passed an anti boycott act which basically said it's it's illegal for

you to not ride the bus in this case. In that case, sure or at least organized people and get them to not ride the bush. It was something like it was a misdemeanor to organize against somebody carrying out lawful business or whatever. So they were getting them on two things, that boycott and then infringing on the bus lines franchise in that city, right, right, So what do you do if you are suing or I'm sorry if you're uh, if you have an anti boycott act? I mean,

you can't arrest everyone. So they go after um, I think eighty nine Martin Luther King Jr. And eighty nine other other members of the m i A. And obviously because they're the most I think how many of them twenty four more ministers. They're the most prominent members. And he's find five hundred bucks and I spent a couple of weeks in jail. He said he's very proud of his crime. Should be yeah, sure. So, um, now Martin Luther King is um appealing. So you've got a few

things going on here. You've got Rosa Parks who has been convicted and now is appealing her her ten dollars plus four dollars in court costs fine for breaking the city ordinance even though she didn't. You've got Martin Luther King now who is appealing his five dollar fine for the boycott and the infringing on the bus lines franchise. And then you have something else. You have a class action suit called Um Browder versus Gail and was Um

named after oh, what's her name? The the woman who's the lead plaintiff in the case, her name is Aurelia S. Browder Uh. And the Gail in the case was the Montgomery um the Montgomery mayor, I think, William Gail. And we'll talk about that. We'll let's take a break and we'll talk about this case, and we'll we'll come back

to the drumbeat of the core system starting to kick in. Alright, So appeals run slow anyway, but in the South, if it's a if it's a case like this, it's gonna go super slow because the hope from the white establishment is, you know, maybe enough time will goes by, time will go buying. These people just sort of get in line and forget about it, get tired of this boycott and everything.

We'll just go back to normal. Yeah, which is kind of a gamble because this boycott was not showing any signs of cracking, So they were basically making that bet on the back of the city bus line and on the jobs of the drivers who are being laid off because ridership is down so low days. Right um, so the like I said that this court, the drumbeat of the court system was starting to grow a little bit

louder um. And you had three big cases Martin Luther King's case, Rosa Park's case, and you had Browder versus Gail, and Broder versus Gail represented four women originally five, but four women who had been convicted of of breaking the law for not giving up their seat on the bus in Montgomery. One of them was Claudette Colvin, another was Mary Louise Smith, I believe, and then um Aurelia Browder,

and then lastly was McDonald's Susie McDonald. Right. So, um, these four women got together and sued the mayor, the bus line, a few bus drivers, the city Public Works Commission, um, just a big group of people. And they were suing to to All three of those cases were suing the question the constitutionality and the legality of segregation in general,

but specifically on the bus lines. And there was a talk at first by Freddie Gray, who was the lead lawyer in the Browder e Gael that um of including Rosa Parks, but he very very wisely kept her separate from that case because he said he wanted the courts to just consider one thing, not whether Rosa Parks is guilty or not, but whether the segregation on the Montgomery buses was was legal and constitutional. So he kept those separate, very very smartly. Yeah. I think he knew that he

could get this to the Supreme Court. Uh. This way was a test case, and that was his his ultimate goal because it was a state statute though in the state Constitution of Alabama. It was of course first brought before District court, three judges in U. S. District Court on June. They ruled two to one that segregation was unconstitutional. Of course, they cited Brown versus Board of Education as president uh. And it eventually wound its way to the

Supreme Court on December. Actually that was pretty quick considering UH, and they rejected all appeals and voted nine to nothing, nine to zero that it was unconstitutional nine to nothing, um, which is I mean, that's really saying something unanimous Supreme Court decision regarding segregation in Yeah. So um, that was a that was huge. I think Dr King was in court that day when he was told by a reporter

about that decision, the Supreme Court decision. Um. And even after he said, we're we're keeping up the boycott because we're well, when they implement this desegregation on the buses will stop the boycott. And after the Supreme Court ruling came through the city of Montgomery, I saw pretty clearly that there wasn't any way to keep this up any longer. And I believe within three days the buses were desegregated.

And on the first day that they were desegregated, Rosa Parks took her seat on a bus, uh, in the front row, I believe. Yeah, they hired black bus drivers. Uh. And this is after, by the way, three eighty one days of a total sales loss of sixty five so um. Yeah. And on the other side, Ralph David Abernathy's home was bombed. Martin Luther King's home was bombed. Uh. People were in jail, people were in court. It was a big struggle down

in Montgomery. Yeah. So in December twenty one, Dr King and his white friend Reverend Clint Smiley sat together on the front row with Ralph David Abernathy. Street here in Atlanta, named for him, Edie Dixon and Fred Gray, the the attorney that saw that case. So that was that was a huge thing that did a number of things. It made Rosa Parks and icon. Yeah, it projected um Martin

Luther King into the national spotlight. That was basically where he first found national fame as and basically was like, well, this guy's the leader of the civil rights movement now, um.

And it also was a huge domino in the idea of desegregation in general, not just on busses, not just in Montgomery, but the concept it followed in the in the wake of plus E v. Ferguson, which it was just one of those court cases that said separate facilities is inherently racist because the only reason you would have separate facilities is because you think one group is superior over the other and they shouldn't have to consort or mix.

That's inherently unconstitutional. And this was one of those dominoes that fell in that chain that led to desegregation across the Jim Crow South. And like a laser, this particular case and the changes it brought were focused right onto Rosa Parks, her act, her courage, what she did. Yeah, and this was this was within our parents lifetime. I know, I was wondering. I was like, why am I so

much more jazz about this than Harriet Tubman. I love Harriet Tubsman Tubman story, but I remember when I was researching, I wasn't new least dess and I realized, like, I can relate to this woman so much better, just because this is pretty pretty recent, you know. Well yeah, and just the notion that, uh, where we are as a country now racially, um, this was not that long ago.

So for the the people in the camp of saying just get over things, um, African Americans, just get over things, It's like this was not hundreds and hundreds of years ago. This was very recently. These like my peers parents had to live through this. Well, one thing Rosa Parks is now known for what they didn't realize before is, you know, she her act and like the civil rights movement that grew out of over like the next ten years, fifteen years,

there's this idea that around. There was a button put on that and it was like, you guys were successful, way to go, we can stop doing this now. Rosa Parks was like, no, no, it's not done. This hasn't changed up until she died in two thousand and five. She was like, the struggle is still continuing. People didn't realize that about her until this collection was opened. Yeah, she um, this all came. There was significant cost to her family, to her, her husband. Um. Her and her

husband both suffered through stomach ulcers because of this. They lost their jobs. Um. Eventually they left Alabama, said let's go to Virginia. And Virginia wasn't a whole lot better that they said, all right, let's go to Detroit. Kept going north. Uh. And then finally, after not having a job for a long time, she lets hired a secretary for John Conyers, brand new, brand newly elected black congressman

who she would work for for twenty three years. And uh, Mr Conyers, you know, he was the one who stepped down last year after sexual assault allegations after serving many many years in Congress. Um and was a civil rights icon. So it's kind of a very sad ending to that story. But Rosa worked for him. Um and seventy seven, her husband, James died of cancer, her brother died of cancer three

months later. Her mom died two years after that. But I get the sense that after that, it really, uh, it really kind of freed her to really go back to work and devote herself once again to the cause, because after those family members passed away, she established the Rosa Parks Scholarship Foundation, uh in the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development, and wrote to memoirs she was busy, she was uh and then very sadly And I remember this in um when she was home invaded

and robbed, hit over the head by a guy named Joseph Skipper. Yeah, man, that was just like, I mean, for you kidding me with that for fifty eight bucks of all the houses to accidentally break into. Yeah, what do you think he knew it was Rosa Parks. I don't know. I don't know, but he has seen nothing to indicate that that was true. He knew that, um, that he would go down as the man who robbed and beat Rosa Parks. So, um, yeah, I don't. I don't think he was he she was targeted because she

was Rosa Parks or anything like that. I think she's just a little old lady. The impression I have is it doesn't matter if she was Rosa Parks or not. Sure you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, so she that was nine four, you said. And then like right afterwards, there was a huge national outcry and she um moved into a very secure high rise in Detroit, where she lived until she died in two thousand five. I believe she died in that apartment two years young. She had

a a slew of honors, unprecedented honors in this country. UM. She was transported her body to Washington, d c uh and she laid in honor under the rotunda, the US capital. First woman to get that honor. Uh, the second African American in the first non government UM American ever to have this honor. I mean, that is a high honor. When she died, every flag on public land in the United States and around the world was flown at half masted, which is pretty pretty great too. Yeah. George W. Bush

made sure that happened. Uh. And then here's just some of her lifetime achievement awards. In double A. CP gave her what's called the spin Garn Medal in their highest honor. She's in the Mid Sigan Woman's Hall of Fame. Martin Luther King Jr. Award nineteen eighty UM you could have just stopped at the Michigan Hall of Fame, Michigan Women's Hall of Fame. Uh, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in ros Michigan Women's Hall of Fame, Congressional Gold Medal. No,

now we're in a contest. Um. Time magazine named her was one of the twenty most influential iconic figures of the twenty century. It's a big one, okay. Uh. And then yeah, you mentioned George W. Bush ordered half mass flags in two thousand five. So again there was this this idea that she was just a tired, little old lady who was quietly brave and didn't give up her seat,

and she was kind of meek and quiet um. And in two thousand fourteen, her personal collection, the Rosa Parks Collection, was sold to the Howard Buffett Foundation, Warren Buffett's son. They bought it for a song at like four and a half million dollars. And it's something like if dostgraphs, and it is her personal papers, like notes for speeches,

notes for her books, I believe, um correspondence. And it paints this picture that no one had of her before, which was no like this lady was an activist they went through her whole life. She was an activist who um wanted to talk about and agitate for the rights of black Americans and how messed up the situation was that they lived in um and that she wouldn't normalize this. She would she would learn to to to deal with it as much as she needed to while she was

working to change it. Um. And there was just a surprise to a lot of people when they cracked open these papers and found that that picture of her. Yeah. I also want to shout out article how history got the Roads of Park story wrong? Um And this was written by the same person who wrote the award winning book The Rebellious Life of Mrs was A Parks. Her name is Jean Theo Harris the Horus. It's all one word. Yeah,

I know it sounds like it should be hyphenated. It's really easy to say, but how do you say it? I have no idea. But Che's professor professor of Policy at Brooklyn College of c n y Man great lady. So if you want to know more about Rosa Parks, go out on the internet, educate yourself. Seen that movie? Have you seen that the about the bus boycott? No, I mean it was a significant event. I had no idea. Um, okay, well I think I said go search stuff in there somewhere.

So it means it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this oh tiny Things alright, Hey, guys, let me start off by saying, enjoyed the podcast very much. Aside from being interesting and entertaining, it very much helps my time in the car. We get that a lot can you help people would go insane if it weren't for us. Um. Several episodes ago, believe Chuck mentioned that you love tiny things.

I do, Josh like things that are grossly oversized. That giant pocket watch over there, it's kind of a pain. I'm wearing it like play fight. Uh. He mentioned loving tiny things there's something extraordinarily satisfying about them. I agree, I love tiny things. Would be remiss if I did not bring um, bring you to the Museum of Jurassic Technology that I don't know. I've been there too. Um. It's in Los Angeles. There are not one, but two fantastic exhibits of tiny things. But I have the needle

in micro mosaics. I don't think I saw those, did you? The tiny thing I remember was like the dioramas of the trailers, and I have the Needle. I remember that. Yeah, I don't remember. The micro Mosaics I haven't been in many years, though I have. The Needle features delightful, whimsical miniature sculptures, actually small enough to fit into the eye of a needle. There you m that's a little too small for me. Okay, so you like so you like?

I like the tiny Tabasco bottles, So you get into you like to feel like you're a giant, not like a god. Yeah, exactly. I just want to be taller. The micro Mosaics exhibit also requires a magnifying glass to enjoy. However beautiful, this exhibit has a slightly creepy aspect to it. The tiny mosaic pieces are in fact bits of butterfly wings. Yeah, it's not too creepy. Oh, I mean they kill the butterflies depends. Yeah, how do they come across those wings?

Where do they road kill? If so, that's fine, Yeah, what a job, go out and just try and find dead butterflies. All in all, these exhibits of a wonderful Field of Magic Realism. Museum also features a lovely rooftop garden as well of a meditative tea room to enjoy complimentary cup of tea. Interesting. That is all guys, cheers from Sandra Williams. Thanks up for the shout out, Sandra. That is a indeed a great place. If you're ever in Los Angeles, everybody go check out the Museum of

Jurassic Technology's going with your mind open and thank us later. Yeah, get out of Ripley's Believe it or Not We'll go to both. You know, sure I said get out of Ripley's Believe it or Not? Okay, Yeah, But I mean Jack Palance Man, how do you how do you pass that? I don't get it? Remember he was the host of

the TV not Yeah. My brother worked with him on City Slickers too, and there was one story where, uh, you know, he's kind of old at the time, where Scott as the A D s to walk him second a D is to walk the talent to the set from their trailer, and it was through the desert, the rocky desert, and Scott was like, you know, look after that wrong, Mr Palence or something like that. And one day he was just like, I don't need you to

tell me how to walk. Scott like shrank down. Of course I can't remember that's exactly what he said, but but I'll bet that um Jack Palance felt so bad for yelling at Scott of all the people do it, you know that Scott and he didn't delight in Scott like every next days. Yeah. Well, if you want to tell us how great you think Scott is, you can tweet to us. I'm at josh um Clark and at s Y s K podcast. You can also check out

my website Are You Serious Clark dot com. Charles W. Chuck Bryant is on Facebook dot com at Facebook dot com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's also uh facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know page. You can send us all an email, including Jerry the Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com. There's always joined us at at home on the Web Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot com