By Judith Stanford Miller, M.Ed., M.A (This article was first published on Student News Net: Montgomery City Bus 2857 – The Rosa Parks Bus , Jan. 23, 2018, ID #9079) Jan. 23, 2018 – It’s the most significant artifact of the modern Civil Rights Movement, Christian Overland, executive vice president and chief historian at the Henry Ford in Dearborn, Mich., said to Student News Net last Friday as he stood beside the 1950s era olive green and yellow Montgomery, Alabama city bus 2857 – the Rosa Parks Bus. Dec. 1, 1955 Visitors to the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation can board the bus and sit in the exact seat occupied by Rosa Parks on Dec. 1, 1955 when James Blake, the bus driver, ordered her to relinquish her seat to a white passenger. She peacefully and politely refused. As a result, Rosa was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of violating the city’s segregation ordinance, taken to jail, and then released quickly when a friend posted the $100 bail. Montgomery’s African American community harnessed their collective economic power to protest Rosa’s arrest through a peaceful boycott of the Montgomery city bus system. The boycott lasted 381 days. In 1956, the U.S. […]