On the way home on the bus from her job as a sales associate at a department store, it started with her getting on the bus at the wrong end. (Coloured people would pay at the front doors, then get off and come through the back doors of the bus.) The driver tried to get her to get off and re-enter, but she was already sitting down by the time he finished his sentence. (Since the buses were segregated, they worked so there was a rope separating the blacks from the whites. As more white people got on, coloured people were asked to give up their seats and move to the back of the bus.) Going down the route, the bus started to fill up. The driver headed to the back to move the rope and requested that Rosa stood to make room for the white man that had just got on. She quietly refused to move as she was tired and didn't understand why she should have to. She hadn't planned her seemingly small protest, but she was tired of not being equal to the whites and finally got too frustrated. The bus driver called police and Rosa was arrested for violating Jim Crow practices. Rosa was later scheduled for a court appeal. When she showed up, there were hundreds of locals there to support and cheer her on. Many people started to recognize her as a leader. Her small act was a very big deal because no one had ever done anything so bold like that around there. Even with all the support, the court ruled Rosa guilty of violating Montgomery segregation laws. Later that day, a boycott to the Montgomery bus service started because many did not believe Rosa's ruling was right. Most coloured people, including many whites, did not use the public transit for 381 days. Then, on December 20th, 1956, the supreme court of America declared that the Montgomery bus segregation laws were unconstitutional. During the time of the boycott, the leader of it, Martin Luther King Jr., house was destroyed by a bomb, as well as E.
