King's emergence as a civil rights leader. On a December afternoon in 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, boarded a Montgomery City Lines bus. The bus had a special segregated sec-tion for blacks behind the white passengers, and Parks took a seat in the first row of the black section. Sitting in the same row was a black man next to her and two black women across the aisle. When more whites boarded the bus, one was left standing. The driver told the blacks in Parks's row to rise so the white passenger could sit there. While the three other blacks finally obliged him, Parks refused to stand up. This insubordination led to her getting arrested, which roused the black community into action. What began as a one-day boycott of the city's bus system by its black riders ended up lasting for more than a year.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, and educated in various states, King had moved to Montgomery, Alabama, the previous year to serve as pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. When leaders of the black community organized themselves into the Montgomery Improvement Association, they unanimously elected King president, and he became the spokesman-leader of the boycott movement.
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