Standing Up By Sitting Down

In 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, a black woman gets on a bus, sits down, and is eventually told by the bus driver to give up her seat for a white person. She calmly refuses to surrender her seat but then was forcefully removed from the bus and eventually arrested.  It was her act of civil disobedience that sparked legal action which led to the end of Alabama's segregated bus laws and empowered a widespread civil rights movement to gain momentum.  That brave young woman is none other than Rosa Parks, right?  Well, sort of... 9 months prior to the Rosa Parks bus ride, in the same city, on the same bus system, with the same laws, and with the same type of forced exodus and arrest, a 15-year old girl did the same thing.  So who is this young, brave teenager?  And why don’t we know more about her, especially when compared with Rosa Parks who did the same thing almost a year after this girl?  Find out today, on this episode of the Missing Chapter.