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Arts in Education Grant- Fall 2012-13 McDougle Elementary School PTA <br /> (0 1,11KE WILEY PRODUCTION'S <br /> The Montgomery Improvement Association is Born: <br /> On Thursday,December 1, 1955,Rosa <br /> Parks boarded a city bus <br /> and sat with three other blacks in the <br /> fifth row, <br /> the first row that blacks could occupy. <br /> A few stops later,the front four rows <br /> were filled with whites, <br /> and one white man was left standing. <br /> According to law, <br /> "s lil <br /> blacks and whites could not occupy the <br /> same row, <br /> so the bus driver asked all four of the <br /> blacks seated in the fifth row to move. <br /> Three complied,but Parks refused.She ------ <br /> was arrested, <br /> when the bay=began,no one <br /> Martin Luther King,Jr., protest would be a success." expected it to last for very long. <br /> minister at Dexter Avenue He was pleasantly surprised Despite all the pressures to and <br /> Baptist Churcb thought when bus after enVtjr bus the boycott,blacks continued to <br /> that"if we could got 60 rallied past his house that stay off the buses. <br /> percent cooperation the morning."A miracle had They would no longer settle for <br /> taken place,"King would the moderate desegregation plan <br /> later write,wXho once that they had Ant proposed.Now, <br /> dormant and quiescent they would accept nothing less <br /> Negro conunanity was now than full integration.The city <br /> fully awake.-The group was fighting a losing battle.The <br /> from Friday night met again blacks were armed with the <br /> that alternoon and.decided Brown V.Board decision,less <br /> to can themselves the than two years old,which said <br /> Montgomery Improvement that the"separate but eqvall' <br /> Association(MA).They doctrine had no place in public <br /> elected King as president. education.Surely it must follow <br /> AO that the doctrine had no place in <br /> RU public facilities. <br /> When the city defended segregation by saying that <br /> Integration would lead to violence,Judge Rives asked. <br /> "Is it fair to command one man to surrender his <br /> constitutional rights,if they are his constitutional <br /> rights,in order to prevent another man from <br /> 7 Fi <br /> committing,a crime?"The federal court decided a-1 in <br /> favor of the blacks,with the lone dissent coming from a 4", <br /> Southern,judge.The city,of course,appealed the ruling, <br /> but on November 13,1956,the U.S.Supreme Court <br /> upheld the lower courts ruling,declaring segregation on <br /> buses unconstitutional.The Montgomery Buz Boycott <br /> was officiany aver <br /> Page 16 of 24 <br />