Rosa Parks
Role & Impact
Role
Rosa Parks was described in the police report as having committed the offense of “refusing to obey riders of a bus driver” (Houck & Dixon, 2006, p.20). This description, however, minimized the purpose and power of her action. Parks was not acting on impulse. She was deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement and had already been trained in resistance strategies due to being a member of the Montgomery NAACP.
Impact
Parks’ decision to stay seated was not because she was physically tired, it was a stand against injustice. Her arrest marked the start of a massive movement, but she was also part of a larger, long-standing resistance led by Black women who demanded respect in public spaces (Valk & Brown, 2010). Her calm yet firm defiance revealed how everyday acts could challenge systems of racial control. As she later said, “The only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”
Martin Luther King
Leadership
Leadership
In his very first speech to the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), King spoke to the crowd at Holt Street Baptist Church and emphasized that their protest was not just about buses, but about human dignity and moral justice (King, 1955/1997, p. 56). He linked the movement to Christian values and nonviolence, which helped unite people under a shared cause and made the movement spiritually powerful as well as politically effective. King’s ability to combine religion, law, and nonviolence gave the Montgomery movement a moral urgency that resonated beyond Alabama. His leadership turned it into a model for civil rights action across the country. His influence helped shape public understanding of the boycott and introduced him as a major voice in the national fight for racial equality.