The only tired I was, was tired of giving in.
Rosa Parks
On the evening of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a bus in downtown Montgomery, Alabama. She paid her fare and sat in the first row of back seats reserved for Black citizens on the segregated bus. When a white man boarded and found himself with no seat in the “white” section, the bus driver ordered Parks and three other Black passengers in her row to stand. Three of the passengers obeyed. Parks did not. Her defiance led to her arrest, and set in motion the Montgomery bus boycott — turning Parks into a symbol of the civil rights movement. She later wrote that it wasn’t physical tiredness that made her refuse to give up her seat, writing, “No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”
