Sieun Joo : Essay4

Research Paper : Rosa Parks

It was December of 1955 in Alabama. I was working since 7'o clock in the morning today because it said it would rain in the morning and we need to get our corns in so they won't get wet. It was after lunch and I could feel the warm sunlight through the window. It was time to go to work.

I went to work in the afternoon. All of my friends did. People who had the same skin color with me do which people call "black". To go to work I went to the bus station. There were some white people waiting too like usual.

The bus came and I got on. It wasn't crowded so I could sit. It was a law that blacks should give their seat when white people don’t have place to sit. I could not understand and I was very mad with the law but unless I want to go to the police office I had to give my seat away and everyone did like it is normal.

I looked out the window thinking how poor I am and that is the time where the incident happened. Two black men hopped on the bus and told me with their fierce look in their eyes to give them my seat.

I stared at them and did not get up. I looked at them straight forward and did not give them my seat. They looked at me with a surprised face. I bet I was the first black woman who was so brave. I don’t remember where I had that braveness from. No blacks could do that unless they wanted to be in trouble.

Problem started from here. The bus driver had me arrested and I was mad that I couldn’t control myself. The law was that I had to pay for not taking the law but I did not pay becuase I didn't think I did somethig wrong. I believed that we have to be treated the same.

I tried and convicted of violating a local ordinance and it worked. I believe we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.

This event sparked a citywide boycott of the bus system by black. We refused to use the buses for more than a year. We did not ride the bus and the bus business did not work as well as before and white people thought they had to do something.

I can remember me and my friends all going to work by bicycles or walk. It was hard and uncomfortable but it was way better than to give whites all the right to do anything to us. Other black people were all mad and fought together.  Lots of black people got kicked out and got fired from work because of this situation. They also got hit but they did not ride the bus.

The boycott introduces the country to a clergyman prominence and eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court made a decision outlawing segregation on city buses. They finally accepted it. We won but the white people got very mad and we had to move away. Martin Luther King fought together about how we should be able to eat in a same restuarant in the south side of America.

I kept on trying to make my fellow Americans aware of the history of the civil rights struggle. This was something everyone had to know and remember. I can never forget the scratch on our heart and how harsh they treated us. I do not want my children and the next generation to be like us. I wanted to give them a safer world where everyone has equal rights and no one gets annoyed for their skin color.

This pioneer in the struggle for racial equality earned many honors, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent peace Prize.

I did not want anything but just that my children could get treated equally and tell them that they are no different from whites.