New Found Respect for Chester A. Arthur Part I

Chester A. Arthur was the 21st President of the United States and he assumed the presidency when James Garfield was assassinated after only six months in office. Arthur served from 1881-85 and did not seek a second term because he knew he would not survive a second term due to his terminal kidney disease. 

That’s pretty much all I knew about him. However, he was a reformer who worked to limit the patronage system (which cost him party support) and because there was a government surplus (words that could never even be considered during this awful, corrupt, and incompetent administration) he lowered tariffs and taxes thereby returning money to the taxpayers. 

So, there isn’t a lot of common knowledge about Chseter Arthur, but pretty much everyone knows about the hero that is Rosa Parks. She refused to give up her bus to a white man and prompted a bus ridership strike and in many ways ignited the Civil Rights Movement. Her actions prompted the Supreme Court to rule (albeit very late) that African Americans have the right to travel anywhere on public transportation. 

Rosa Parks wasn’t the first African American to peaceably protest discrimination on public transportation. But she is the one we know. Is there someone earlier than Rosa Parks that we’ve forgotten? And how is Chester A. Arthur connected?