MARTIN LUTHER KING

● 42-year-old Rosa Parks boarded the bus to go home. She sat in the first row
of the "coloured" section in the middle of the bus. As the bus traveled its
route, all the seats in the white section filled up, then more white
passengers boarded the bus. The bus driver noted that there were more
white men standing. The driver asked her to give up her seat and she
refused. Parks was arrested and booked for violating the Montgomery City
Code. At her trial a week later, Parks was found guilty and fined $10 and
assessed $4 court fee.
● In his first speech as the group's president, King declared, "We have no
alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown amazing patience.
We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the
way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from that
patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice."

OSCAR ROMERO

● During his two years as Bishop of Santiago de Maria, Romero was horrified
to find that children were dying because their parents could not pay for
simple medicines. He began using the resources of the diocese and his own
personal resources to help the poor. He wrote in his diary that people who
are poor should not just receive handouts from the Church or the
government but participate in changing their lives for the future.
● Oscar demanded a peace that could only be found by ensuring people had
access to basic needs and their rights upheld. He raised awareness globally
about the people in his country who had been killed.
● Romero began to speak directly to soldiers and policemen: “I beg you, I
implore you, I order you... in the name of God, stop the repression!” The
following evening, while saying Mass in the chapel of Divine Providence
Hospital, Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot by a paid assassin.