Parks had previously had an altercation with James Blake, the bus driver, who insisted she leave her seat

More than a decade before, Parks had a run-in with James Blake, the bus driver who reported her to the cops in 1955. In 1943, she boarded a bus driven by Blake, who directed her to exit and re-enter through the back doors after she paid her fare—a rule for Black riders on the segregated bus system. When Parks got off the bus, Blake drove away instead of waiting for her to come back on. She had avoided the driver for over ten years until she boarded his bus without paying attention one day. Blake was the one who contacted the cops and got her detained after she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger.

Parks had been removed from Blake's bus in 1943 after she refused to re-enter through the back door after paying her fare at the front. In her memoirs, she writes, "I never wanted to be on that man's bus again." "After that, I made it a point to inspect the bus driver before boarding." I didn't want to have any further encounters with that nasty one." After the Supreme Court issued a written decision prohibiting bus segregation and the Montgomery Bus Boycott concluded on December 21, 1956, Parks boarded one of the newly integrated buses to pose for press shots, which happened to be driven by Blake.