MORE THAN A BUS RIDE

 

In June 1953 Martha White, a 31year old black housekeeper, was returning home after an exhausting day at work when she boarded a bus to find that the only seats available were those   for white people. She sat there.

Baton Rouge had just passed a regulation to desegregate the city’s buses but no one had taken any notice. She was ordered off the bus.

This initial altercation led to 100 bus drivers not going to work, the attorney general changing the law  and a passenger bus strike.

Two years later an inspired Rosa Parks staged her protest in neighbouring Alabama