What are your schools teaching during Black-History month? You may be surprised to learn that many schools have not taken Black-History as a challenge to explore different ideas, people, and aspects of history. Many have failed by teaching only the minimum required. Today's youth are missing a huge opportunity to understand Black-History so that the lessons learned can be applied to the present.
Rosa Parks, the "Mother of The Civil Rights Movement", is one of the most important citizens of the 20th century. In December, 1955, she was tired from a long day of work. Under other circumstances, she would have probably given up her seat with no complaints. But this time Parks was upset and tired of the treatment the African-Americans were receiving every day from racism, segregation, and the Jim Crow laws in effect at that time. The bus driver had her arrested, and she was tried and convicted of violating a local ordinance. Parks' act started a citywide boycott of the bus system by African-Americans that lasted for more than a year. As a result of the Montgomery bus boycott in November of 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation on transportation is unconstitutional.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta Georgia. King attended Morehouse College and went on to study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. King then deepened his understanding of theological scholarship after exploring Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent strategy for social change. In 1955 King married a young woman named Coretta Scott. They had two sons and two daughters. On December 5, 1955, after civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to comply with Montgomery's segregation policy on buses, African-American residents elected King president of the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association. During those days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, and he was subjected to personal abuse.