9781422277843

The restored Cleveland Avenue bus, which Rosa Parks boarded on December 1, 1955.

The Thirteenth Amendment had outlawed slavery in 1865, but many white southerners had never been able to regard blacks as their equals or even as citizens of the United States. Slavery was replaced by segregation —laws and practices mandating the exclusion of blacks from the rest of society. Under segregation, black children could not go to the same schools as white children, and blacks were not allowed to use the same public facilities (hotels, theaters, restaurants, lunch counters, sinks, bathrooms, water fountains, waiting rooms, libraries, parks, swimming pools, etc.) as white people. Southern courtrooms even had separate “colored” and “white” Bibles to use when swearing in witnesses. Blacks were also not allowed the same access to public transportation as whites.

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C I V I L R I G H T S L E A D E R S : R O S A PA R K S