Dunn’s Civics > Black History > Crafting a Black Identity in the American Empire
A History of Buses
Newspaper illustration from the London News, September 27, 1856
Write your own history of buses.
Rosa Louise Parks was nationally recognized as the "mother of the modern day civil rights movement" in America. Her refusal to surrender her seat to a white male passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, December 1, 1955, triggered a wave of protest December 5, 1955 that reverberated throughout the United States. Her quiet courageous act changed America, its view of black people and redirected the course of history. Read More >>
Eleven years before Rosa Parks, Irene Morgan was arrested in Virginia for refusing to give her bus seat to a white passenger. She was convicted on October 18, 1944 at the Middlesex County Circuit Court, but appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court where her conviction was upheld. With help from NAACP lawyers, including Thurgood Marshall, Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in March 1946.
Though narrowly interpreted, the Court's decision struck down state laws requiring segregated seating for interstate bus travel. In 1947 the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) sent 16 volunteers on the Journey of Reconciliation to test compliance with the Supreme Court's ruling. Fourteen years later, however, the unconstitutional practice of racially segregated seating on interstate buses continued throughout the Deep South, prompting CORE to organize the Freedom Rides in 1961 in an effort to focus national attention on the issue. Read More >>
Bus to Jerusalem stopped after woman refuses to move to back
By Ami Kaufman
Published December 17, 2011
972mag.com
All Tanya Rosenblit wanted to do was get on a bus to Jerusalem. She didn’t have any plans to turn into the Israeli Rosa Parks, when a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews demanded she move to the back of the bus
Tanya Rosenblit
It was supposed to be just another regular Friday morning for Tanya Rosenblit. Tanya had to get from her hometown Ashdod to Jerusalem for a meeting there. On the way, Rosenblit experienced one of the most intimidating stories of religious coercion I’ve seen lately: She was told by a Haredi man to get to the back of the bus, or nobody was going to go anywhere.
And what do you think Rosenblit did? That’s right – she stayed put. And she took pictures of the whole ordeal and later wrote about it on Facebook. Here’s her story, which I publish part of with her permission:
Tanya Rosenblit
Waiting for Rosenblit to move to the back, preventing driver from moving (photo: Tanya Rosenblit)