Gordon Lucy: Rosa Parks made her stand for civil rights by sitting tight

​She possessed Ulster-Scots ancestry by virtue of James Percival, her great-grandfather.

James, an indentured servant on the Wright estate in Pine Level, Montgomery, had married Mary Jane Nobels, an African-American slave and midwife on the same estate.

Their great-granddaughter was a seamstress and housekeeper and secretary of the Montgomery branch of the National Association of Colored People (NAACP) from 1943 to 1956, and in December 1955 she challenged one of the most visible marks of second-class citizenship for African-Americans in the American South – their treatment on public transport.

Under the system of segregation used on Montgomery buses, the 10 front seats were always reserved for white people. The 10 back seats were supposed to be always reserved for black people. The middle section of the bus consisted of 16 unreserved seats for white and black people on a segregated basis. White people filled the middle seats from the front to back, and black people filled seats from the back to front until the bus was full. If other black people boarded the bus, they were required to stand. If another white person boarded the bus, then everyone in the black row nearest the front had to get up and stand so that a new row for white people could be created; it was illegal in practice for white and black people to sit next to each other.

On December 1 1955, Rosa Parks was sitting in the foremost row in which black people could sit (in the middle section). When a white man boarded the bus, the bus driver told everyone in her row to move back. While all of the other black people in her row complied, Parks refused, and she was arrested for failing to obey the driver's seat assignments, as city ordinances did not explicitly mandate segregation but did give the bus driver authority to assign seats.

Local black leaders decided to make her a test case: married, middle-aged and a regular churchgoer, she was perfect for the role. (Martin Luther King described Parks as ‘one of the finest citizens of Montgomery – not one of the finest Negro [sic] citizens, but one of the finest citizens of Montgomery’.)

A boycott of Montgomery’s buses was organised for the day of her court appearance.

The boycott, which was intended as a one-day event, was so successful that it lasted 381 days. It was lifted on December 20 1956, when the federal ruling (Bowder v Gayle) took effect and led to the US Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional.

The bus boycott attracted national and international attention. It also marked the rise to prominence of the 26-year-old the Rev Dr Martin Luther King who became the spokesperson of the protest. His role in the bus boycott transformed him into a national figure and the best-known spokesman of the civil rights movement.

At the first mass meeting of the campaign, King explained in his electrifying but sober oratory: ‘There comes a time when people get tired. We are here this evening to say to those who have mistreated us so long, that we are tired – tired of being segregated and humiliated, tired of being kicked about by the brutal feet of oppression …

‘We have no alternative but to protest … If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong.’

King located the protest firmly within the context of the civic traditions of the United States and Cold War politics: ‘If we were incarcerated behind the iron curtains of a communistic nation we couldn’t do this but the great glory of American democracy is the right to protest.’

Repudiating the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, non-violence was stressed: ‘In our protest, there will be no cross burnings. No white person will be taken from his home by a hooded Negro [sic] mob and brutally murdered … Our actions must be guided by the deepest principles of our Christian faith … Love your enemies, bless them that curse you.’

Although widely honoured in later years, Rosa Parks initially paid a heavy price for her challenge to the status quo.

She was fired from her job and received death threats for years afterwards. Shortly after the boycott, she moved north to Detroit, where she briefly found similar work. Between 1965 and 1988, she served as secretary and receptionist to an African-American congressman.

In 1992, Parks published ‘Rosa Parks: My Story’, an autobiography aimed at a young readership. Three years later, she published ‘Quiet Strength’, a memoir which focused on her faith.

Rosa Parks died, aged 92, in Detroit on 24 October 2005.

Montgomery and Detroit announced on October 27, 2005, that the front seats of their city buses would be reserved with black ribbons in honour of Parks until her funeral.

Parks' coffin was flown to Montgomery and taken in a horse-drawn hearse to the St Paul’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, where she lay in repose on October 29, 2005, dressed in the uniform of a church deaconess. A memorial service was held there the following morning.

One of the speakers, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said that if it had not been for Parks, she would probably have never held that office.

In the evening the casket was transported to Washington D C and transported by a bus similar to the one in which she made her protest, to lie in honour in the rotunda of the Capitol. She was the first woman to be so honoured.

California and Missouri commemorate Rosa Parks Day on her birthday (February 4) while Ohio, Oregon and Texas have chosen to commemorate her on the date of her arrest (December 1).