Two months after his defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte’s colonial forces, Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaims the independence of Saint-Domingue, renaming it Haiti after its original Arawak name.
In 1791, a revolt erupted on the French colony, and Toussaint Louverture, a formerly enslaved man, took control of the rebels. Gifted with natural military genius, Toussaint organized an effective guerrilla war against the island’s colonial population. He found able generals in two other formerly enslaved men, Dessalines and Henri Christophe, and in 1795 he made peace with revolutionary France following its abolishment of slavery. Toussaint became governor-general of the colony and in 1801 conquered the Spanish portion of island, freeing the enslaved peoples there.
On the evening of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American, was arrested for disobeying an Alabama law requiring black passengers to relinquish seats to white passengers when the bus was full. Blacks also were required to sit at the back of the bus. Her arrest sparked a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system and led to a 1956 Supreme Court decision banning segregation on public transportation.
I did not get on the bus to get arrested; I got on the bus to go home.
Quiet Strength: the faith, the hope, and the heart of a woman who changed a nation. Reflections by Rosa Parks with Gregory J. Reed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1994. p23.
Rosa Parks: “Why do you push us around?” Officer: “I don’t know but the law is the law and you’re under arrest.”
Quiet Strength: the faith, the hope, and the heart of a woman who changed a nation. Reflections by Rosa Parks with Gregory J. Reed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1994. p23.
Rosa McCauley was born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. In 1932, she married Raymond Parks and with his encouragement earned a high school diploma. The couple was active in the Montgomery Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) External. While working as a seamstress, Mrs. Parks served as chapter secretary and, for a time, as advisor to the NAACP Youth Council. Denied the right to vote on at least two occasions because of her race, Rosa Parks also worked with the Voters League in preparing blacks to register.
“We Shall Overcome.” Silphia Horton, Frank Hamilton, Guy Carawan, and Pete Seeger; New York: Ludlow Music, Inc., 1963. [Courtesy: Ludlow Music, Inc., 11 West 19th Street New York, NY 10011.] The Civil Rights Era. In The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship. Music Division Probably first used in 1945 by striking South Carolina tobacco workers, “We Shall Overcome” became the anthem of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The protest song’s first separate publication, shown above, credits Silphia Horton of the Highlander Folk School with shared authorship.
Following the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the NAACP choose Rosa Parks to attend a desegregation workshop at the Highlander Folk School External in Monteagle, Tennessee. Reflecting on that experience, Parks recalled, “At Highlander I found out for the first time in my adult life that this could be a unified society…I gained there the strength to persevere in my work for freedom not just for blacks, but for all oppressed people.”
Although her arrest was not planned, Park’s action was consistent with the NAACP’s desire to challenge segregated public transport in the courts. A one-day bus boycott coinciding with Parks’s December 5 court date resulted in an overwhelming African-American boycott of the bus system. Since black people constituted seventy percent of the transit system’s riders, most busses carried few passengers that day.
The success of the boycott mandated sustained action. Religious and political leaders met at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (later the Southern Christian Leadership Conference). Dexter’s new pastor, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., was appointed the group’s leader. For the next year, the Montgomery Improvement Association coordinated the bus boycott and King, an eloquent young preacher, inspired those who refused to ride:
If we are wrong—the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong—God almighty is wrong! If we are wrong—Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer and never came down to earth. If we are wrong—justice is a lie. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” 1
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Montgomery, Alabama, 1955.
During the boycott, King insisted that protestors retain the moral high ground, hinting at his later strategy of nonviolent resistance.
This is not a war between the white and the Negro but a conflict between justice and injustice. If we are arrested every day, if we are exploited every day, if we are trampled over every day, don’t ever let anyone pull you so low as to hate them. We must use the weapon of love. 2
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Montgomery, Alabama, 1955.
In December 1956 the Supreme Court banned segregation on public transportation and the boycott ended over a year after it had begun. Rosa and Raymond Parks moved to Detroit where, for more than twenty years, the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement” worked for Congressman John Conyers. In addition to the Rosa Parks Peace Prize (Stockholm, 1994) and the U.S. Medal of Freedom (1996), Rosa Parks has been awarded two-dozen honorary doctorates from universities around the world.
Rosa Parks died on October 24, 2005, at the age of ninety-two, at her home in Detroit, Michigan. On October 30, 2005, Parks became the first woman to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
Martin Luther King Jr. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. ed. Clayborne Carson (New York: Intellectual Properties Management in Association with Warner Books: 1998), 60. (Return to text)
December 1: Rosa Parks Day, World AIDS Day, Eat a Red Apple Day, National Pie Day, Giving Tuesday* (Tuesday after Thanksgiving)
December 2: Special Education Day, National Mutt Day
December 3: Make a Gift Day, National Roof Over Your Head Day, Let’s Hug Day, National Apple Pie Day
December 4: Santa’s List Day, National Cookie Day, Wildlife Conservation Day
December 5: Repeal Day, International Volunteer Day, National Communicate With Your Kids Day
December 6: Mitten Tree Day, National Microwave Oven Day, Coats & Toys for Kids Day* (first Saturday), National Gazpacho Day
December 7: National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, Letter Writing Day, International Civil Aviation Day, National Cotton Candy Day, Walt Disney Day* (first Monday)
December 8: Pretend to Be a Time Traveler Day, National Brownie Day, National Christmas Tree Day
December 9: Christmas Card Day, National Pastry Day
December 10: Human Rights Day, Nobel Prize Day, First Night of Hanukkah* (varies, sometimes in November), Dewey Decimal System Day, National Lager Day
December 11: First Day of Hanukkah* (varies, sometimes in November), National App Day
December 12: National Poinsettia Day, Gingerbread House Day, National Ding-a-Ling Day
December 13: National Violin Day, Ice Cream Day, International Children’s Day* (second), National Horse Day, World Choral Day* (second Sunday), National Cocoa Day
December 14: Roast Chestnuts Day
December 15:Bill of Rights Day, National Cupcake Day, International Tea Day
December 16: Boston Tea Party Day, National Chocolate Covered Anything Day
December 17: Wright Brothers’ First Flight Anniversary, National Maple Syrup Day
December 18: Bake Cookies Day, National Twin Day, National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day* (third Friday)
December 19: Look for an Evergreen Day, National Oatmeal Muffin Day, Holly Day
December 20: Go Caroling Day, Games Day, National Sangria Day, National Wreaths Across America Day* (third Saturday)
December 21: First Day of Winter/Winter Solstice* (date varies), Crossword Puzzle Day, Humbug Day, Look on the Bright Side Day, National Flashlight Day, National Hamburger Day, Forefathers’ Day, Don’t Make Your Bed Day* (first day of Winter), National Short Story Day* (first day of Winter)
December 22: National Date Nut Bread Day
December 23: Festivus, National Roots Day, National Pfeffernüsse Day
December 24: Christmas Eve, National Egg Nog Day, National Chocolate Candy Day
December 25: Christmas Day, National Pumpkin Pie Day
December 26: National Whiners Day, Boxing Day, National Candy Cane Day
December 27: National Fruitcake Day, Make Cut-Out Snowflakes Day
December 28: National Card Playing Day
December 29: Tick Tock Day
December 30: Bacon Day
December 31: New Year’s Eve, Make Up Your Mind Day
At 8 p.m. on December 30, 1936, in one of the first sit-down strikes in the United States, auto workers occupy the General Motors Fisher Body Plant Number One in Flint, Michigan. The auto workers, over 136K, were striking to win recognition of the United Auto Workers (UAW) as the only bargaining agent for GM’s workers; they also wanted to make the company stop sending work to non-union plants and to establish a fair minimum wage scale, a grievance system and a set of procedures that would help protect assembly-line workers from injury. In all, the strike lasted 44 days.
The Flint sit-down strike was not spontaneous; UAW leaders, inspired by similar strikes across Europe, had been planning it for months. The strike actually began at smaller plants: Fisher Body in Atlanta on November 16, GM in Kansas City on December 16 and a Fisher stamping plant in Cleveland on December 28. The Flint plant was the biggest coup, however: it contained one of just two sets of body dies that GM used to stamp out almost every one of its 1937 cars. By seizing control of the Flint plant, auto workers could shut down the company almost entirely.
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