BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — Local civil rights activist Martha White died over the weekend at the age of 99.
The Baton Rouge African American History Museum remembers White’s impact on civil rights history when she refused to give up her seat on a public bus for a white passenger in a Facebook post.
Her arrest led to the Baton Rouge Bus Boycott in 1953.
“The success of this protest prompted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to send emissaries to Baton Rouge to learn the tactics that had been used here,” according to the Baton Rouge African American History Museum.