Person #3

One important point in the speech made by Martin Luther King, Jr. is that the city ordinance was never completely clarified. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person, there was an ordinance in effect. The ordinance said that if whites and African-Americans were both on the bus, they had to be seated separately. White people were getting onto the bus and the driver asked Parks and other African-Americans to move. Parks refused and she was arrested. Although, she did have to get up because the other African-Americans in her row left, leaving her the only black person seated in that row, she could have stayed seated. Local custom was that bus drivers would ask blacks to move even when whites were able to stand. Therefore, Parks technically could have stayed because the white people coming onto the bus could have stood. The ordinance does not specifically state that she absolutely had to give up her seat. There was room for the white people to stand on the bus.

Another important point is that the African-Americans had a right to protest Rosa Parks' arrest. Under the first amendment, they are entitled "the right of the people peaceable to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Throughout the entire speech, King is talking of how they are allowed to boycott. At one point he says, "...we are within the law." He then talks about how African-Americans must never think they are wrong in protesting. Afterwards he states, "We reserve that right." Martin Luther King, Jr. and all African-Americans had the right to protest the Montgomery buses. They were never wrong in their actions, especially when they did it peacefully.