I did not get on the bus to get arrested. I got on the bus to go home.

In this remark Parks rejects the later mythologizing of her act as a staged bid for martyrdom. By stressing the ordinary purpose of her bus ride—simply trying to get home—she underscores how segregation invaded everyday life and how resistance could arise from routine human dignity rather than grand strategy. The line also reframes her arrest as something imposed by an unjust system, not sought by her, highlighting the asymmetry of power: a normal action becomes “criminal” only because the law is immoral. Its significance lies in restoring Parks’s agency and humanity while emphasizing that the civil-rights struggle was rooted in daily, lived experience.