On 1 December 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, a quiet and dignified 42-year-old black seamstress refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. Her arrest led to a 381-day boycott of the city bus system, led by Martin Luther King, which is now considered the beginning of the American civil rights movement. Rosa Parks' personality and character were crucial to the success of the bus boycott Graceful, reserved and a devout churchgoer, she was also a civil rights activist alongside her daytime job as a seamstress, and she believed in the use of righteous force when necessary. The boycott was an epic event. 50,000 blacks (three quarters of the city's population) somehow found some other way to get to and from work, week after week. In 1957 she and her husband moved north to Detroit, where she continued to work for civil rights, taking part in most of the great marches of the 1960s. When Luther King was assassinated however she sensed that the movement was losing its way, with violence, bitterness and anger replacing non-violent protest.