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Rosa Parks is fingerprinted by police Lieutenant DH Lackey in Montgomery. AP/Press Association Images

Sixty years ago Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus - and changed history

Here’s the arrest report.

ON THIS DAY, 60 years ago in Montgomery, Alabama, a 42-year-old woman sat on a bus on her way home from work at around 6pm.

In doing so, she changed the course of history.

When Rosa Parks was ordered to leave her seat to allow standing white passengers sit, she refused.

She moved to the window seat instead of moving to the designated “coloured” area, offering a white passenger the seat beside her.

She would be arrested by two police officers, as can be seen in the arrest report below.

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The next day, she was tried on charges of disorderly conduct and violating a local ordinance. After being found guilty in less than 30 minutes, she was fined $10 plus $4 in court costs.

Parks appealed her conviction and formally challenged the legality of racial segregation.

Four days after her arrest, blacks in Montgomery would boycott the city buses despite the driving December rain. The group formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). MIA would elect Montgomery newcomer Martin Luther King would to lead the local Baptist church.

The small act of defiance would ignite the Civil Rights movement in the American south. Parks would be portrayed as a woman too tired to move, but in her memoir My Story she said that was not the case.

People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was 42. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.

Read: Over 9,000 Irish women or ‘inmates’ went through these doors, forced to repent

Read: These are some of the oddest true Irish tales you’ll ever read

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    Mute GerryCummins
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    Jul 9th 2019, 11:28 PM

    How do you stop a tram weighing X tons if someone steps out in front of it? Rip to the victim but wishing the driver the best of recovery from an unavoidable tradgedy also!

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    Mute Leroy Brown
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    Jul 9th 2019, 11:41 PM

    @GerryCummins: horrible for both the driver and the girl that was killed… neither will come back from this :(

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    Mute Louise Reid Mc Hugh
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    Jul 10th 2019, 9:05 AM

    @GerryCummins: the woman was already lying on the track she didn’t just fall out in front of it. May she rest in peace & let’s not forget about the tram driver in this very sad situation.

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    Mute Honeybee
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    Jul 9th 2019, 11:07 PM

    The area in question between Fatima stop and St James’s is indeed a dark and poorly lit area as the Luas travels on a grassy bank around a bend into darkness before coming in to the public area in front of the hospital.The driver is correct and this is borne out by the recommendations that drivers use full beams on this stretch of track.

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    Mute Martin Mc Donagh
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    Jul 9th 2019, 10:30 PM

    Rip.

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    Mute John Kelly
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    Jul 10th 2019, 8:21 AM

    Very sad for all involved..

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