In the book “At the Dark End of the Street” Danielle L. McGuire writes, “After World War I, the Alabama Klan unleashed a wave of terror designed to return ‘uppity’ African Americans to their proper place in the segregated social order.”

It was against that backdrop this Parks witnessed and sought justice for the victims of widespread bigotry rippling throughout the state. Alongside other activists, Parks founded the “Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor” to bring attention to the case. With the support of W.E.B. DuBois, Mary Church Terrell and Langston Hughes, among others, the case rose to prominence, however, the accused were never brought to justice.

“Whites didn’t like blacks having that kind of attitude,” Parks said of black soldiers returning to the South. Many soldiers expected better treatment following their military service. Southerners instead “started doing all kinds of violent things to black people to remind them that they didn’t have rights.”

Indeed, the problem of racial prejudice in the South was a deep-seated one - a problem founded on a longstanding history of intimidation.

“Unsubstantiated rumors of black men attacking innocent white women sparked almost 50% of all race riots in the United States between Reconstruction and World War II,” says McGuire. He references the uptick in rumors of black-on-white rape “whenever African Americans asserted their humanity or challenged white supremacy.”