A tremendous piece of public work began on this bus.

Three seats up from the back door, on the right, near the window. December 1st, 1955.

A woman sat down. She was a seamstress, the elected secretary in the local NAACP, and recently returned from a course in Race Relations at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee.

And when Rosa Parks stood up again, under arrest for not moving out of her seat when asked to by the driver, a plan of public action was put into motion; years of planning, preparation, and organizing become public, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott began.

“I did not want to be mistreated, I did not want to be deprived of a seat that I had paid for. It was just time… there was opportunity for me to take a stand to express the way I felt about being treated in that manner. I had not planned to get arrested. I had plenty to do without having to end up in jail. But when I had to face that decision, I didn’t hesitate to do so because I felt that we had endured that too long. The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became.”

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The public work started on that day still continues.

Bus Photo from Wikimedia Commons, by Derek W. under a CC-BY-SA-3.0 license.
Rosa Parks photo from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.