PARKS and KING

PEOPLE WHO MADE A DIFFERENCERosa Parks Martin Luther King

In 1865, at the end of the American Civil War, slavery was abolished but a rigid system of racial segregation soon started

Segregation in the USA

WHITES COLOURED

White and black people couldn't go to the same schools, hospitals, restaurants, trains and buses.

She was a black woman who lived in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa went to a school for black children and had to walk miles to get there, while white students had a school bus. She grew with constant discrimination and witnessed lots of violence against black people.

ROSA PARKS(1913-2005)

Segregation laws didn't allow marriage between black and white people and black people were excluded from political life

click on the photo

In those days buses had seats reserved to whites at the front and seats reserved to black people at the back. One day, in December 1955 the bus was empty but Rosa thought "NO MORE!" and she refused to give her seat to a white man. The bus driver stopped the bus and called the police. SHE WAS ARRESTED...

• When Rosa was arrested King organized a BOYCOTT of the buses in Alabama in support of the woman.
• For one year black people walked, cycled or used cars. The bus companies lost a lot of money.
• In 1956 segregation was declared ILLEGAL on buses.

MARTIN LUTHER KING

• He was one of the leaders in the campaign agains racial discrimination.
• He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929.
• He studied theology and became the pastor of a black baptist church in Montgomery.

Martin Luther King

«I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!»

King believed in NON-VIOLENT protest and he organized many campaign against racial segregation. He was arrested lots of times but he continued to protest. In 1963, 250,000 people marched in Washington in a peaceful protest. King spoke to them about his dream of FREEDOM and EQUALITY for all Americans.

"I HAVE A DREAM"

"...early morning April four a shot rings out in the Memphis sky..."

A famous song by the Irish pop group U2 was written to remember him, "Pride"

King won the NOBEL PRIZE FOR PEACE in 1965. Sadly he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in April 1968

Rosa Parks became a symbol of the civil rights movement and in 1996 the American president Clinton awarded her with the MEDAL of FREEDOM.She died in 2005 at the age of 92. At her memorial there were about 50,000 people.