Today in History, December 1st
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, sparking a 381-day boycott. Plus Ford's assembly line.
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December 1 is best known for 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus and was arrested, setting off the Montgomery bus boycott. It is also the day Henry Ford’s moving assembly line debuted in 1913 and the day the Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959.
The big story: Rosa Parks keeps her seat (1955)
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress, refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus to a white passenger. She was arrested and jailed, and a local civil rights leader bailed her out. Montgomery’s Black community was ready. The Women’s Political Council, led by Jo Ann Robinson, had spent about a decade pressing the city to improve conditions on its buses, and it moved quickly to call a one-day boycott for December 5. About 90 percent of the city’s Black residents stayed off the buses that day. Local ministers then formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to keep the protest going and chose a young pastor, Martin Luther King Jr., as its president. The boycott lasted 381 days. In June 1956 a federal court ruled that segregated bus seating was unconstitutional, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ruling that November, and the order took effect on December 20, 1956. One refusal on one bus became a turning point for the civil rights movement.
More events on December 1
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1640 | Portuguese conspirators overthrew Spain’s governor in Lisbon and offered the crown to the Duke of Bragança, ending 60 years of Spanish rule. |
| 1779 | George Washington’s army settled into winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey. |
| 1825 | Russia’s Emperor Alexander I died unexpectedly in the south of the country. |
| 1862 | Abraham Lincoln sent his written annual message to Congress, laying out the Union war effort and his approach to slavery. |
| 1913 | Ford’s plant in Highland Park, Michigan, started the first moving assembly line for building an entire automobile. |
| 1925 | Germany, France, Belgium, Britain and Italy signed the Pact of Locarno, meant to guarantee peace in western Europe. |
| 1934 | Soviet Politburo member Sergei Kirov was assassinated in Leningrad. Stalin used the killing to launch the Great Purge, and historians still debate whether he ordered it. |
| 1959 | Twelve nations signed the Antarctic Treaty, setting the continent aside for science and banning military activity there. |
| 1988 | The first World AIDS Day was held. |
| 1990 | Workers digging the Channel Tunnel from Britain and France broke through to each other under the sea. |
| 2000 | Vicente Fox was inaugurated as president of Mexico, ending decades of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party. |
| 2009 | The Treaty of Lisbon took effect, reshaping the European Union’s founding treaties and institutions. |
Born on December 1
- 1761: Marie Tussaud, French wax sculptor and founder of Madame Tussaud’s wax museum.
- 1844: Alexandra of Denmark, later queen consort of Britain’s Edward VII.
- 1940: Richard Pryor, American comedian and actor, born in Peoria, Illinois.
- 1945: Bette Midler, American singer and actress.
Keep reading
Sources
- On This Day: December 1, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- This Day in History: December 1, History.com
- Montgomery bus boycott, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Rosa Parks, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- John IV, king of Portugal, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The Treaty of Lisbon, European Parliament
- Richard Pryor, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Alexandra, queen consort of Great Britain, Encyclopaedia Britannica
