After a long day of work as an assistant tailor at a Montgomery department store, Rosa Parks was sitting in the middle row of a bus when she suddenly made up her mind to do something.
"Are you going to stand up?" the angry bus driver demanded. "No!" Rosa answered in a firm voice.
"Well, I'm going to have you arrested," he announced loudly"You may do that," Rosa replied.
The Cleveland Avenue bus waited that day for the police to arrive. Some people got off. Others stayed on--all of them staring at Rosa.
Two policemen entered the bus and walked over to her. "Why didn't you stand up?" one of them asked.Mrs. Parks looked up and said, "Why do you all push us around?" "I don't know," he said, "but the law is the law, and you're under arrest." The policemen took Rosa to jail. Inside, she was fingerprinted and locked in a cell. Allowed one phone call, she dialed her husband. "Parks," she asked, "will you come get me out of jail?"