4 years before Rosa Parks ignited the Montgomery Bus boycott by refusing to give up her seat in Alabama, there was PFC Sarah Keys from the Keyesville neighborhood of Washington, NC, who when traveling from Fort Dix in NJ back home to Washington, NC on August 1, 1951, was told to relinquish her seat to a white Marine and move to the back of the bus. Keys refused to move, thus the driver emptied the bus, directed the other passengers to another vehicle, and barred Keys from boarding it. When Keys asked why she shouldn’t ride the bus, she was arrested and spent 13 hours in a cell. Keys was eventually ordered to pay a $25 fine for disorderly conduct, was released, and put on a bus to her hometown. Her case was brought before the Interstate Commerce Commission with Dovey Johnson Roundtree as her lawyer and wasn’t settled until 1955. In Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company, the ICC favored Keys, ruling the Interstate Commerce Act forbids segregation.

In 1968, Tommie Smith and John Carlos performed the Black Power salute at the Olympics that outraged millions of white Americans. —The was an act of protest by the U.S. athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos during their medal ceremony at the 1968 Summer Olympics in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City. As they turned to face their flags and hear the American national anthem (The Star-Spangled Banner), they each raised a Black-gloved fist and kept them raised until the anthem had finished. Smith, Carlos and Australian silver medalist Peter Norman all wore human rights badges on their jackets. The event is regarded as one of the most overtly political statements in the history of the modern Olympic Games. Both athletes were kicked off the US team for their protest.