Dixon's right leg was so badly damaged that it had to be amputated. The burns to his face left him blind in his right eye and with greatly diminished vision in his left. During his lengthy recovery, he lost his job as a carpenter, and ended up eventually working in a cannery attending to machinery that he learned to operate by sound and touch, along with what little vision he had left. His wife Agnes went to work as a maid, and together they survived on less than half the income his business had brought him. In 1944, Dixon's wife developed a blood cancer that took her life the following year. Dixon cared for her during her illness, and even helped dig her grave in the family plot. He never remarried. Dixon's only son Frank had died two year's earlier in the South Pacific during WWII. William Dixon retired from the cannery in 1951. He spent the remainder of his life living off a meager pension. Every sunny day, he would take the bus to the grocery store, to local parks, and to the library, where volunteers would read the paper to him. On December 1st, 1955, William Dixon had his encounter with Rosa Parks. Because of his wooden prosthesis, Dixon required a larger, more open bench at the front of the bus. When he boarded, bus driver James F. Blake led Mr. Dixon to the the larger seat, and requested Rosa Parks make way for Mr. Dixon. With quiet determination to sit down for her rights as a black woman, Parks calmly replied "No."
Needless to say, the passengers nearby were astonished that Parks would not yield her seat to a cripple, and they quickly offered their own seats to Mr. Dixon. Bus driver James Blake, who knew Mr. Dixon well, explained his disability and why he needed the larger seat. Rosa Parks responded Dixon should take his leg off and have a seat at the back of the bus. This elicited groans from those on board the bus. One passenger, Eleanor Jones, a black woman, scolded Parks for failing to assist Dixon, and was quoted as saying "Lady - this is why some White people call Negroes niggers, it's for behaving like a fool and having no manners or sense." Parks responded, "Shut your damn face and sit back down. I won't move for that old Cracker." The bus driver then told Parks to leave the vehicle, as he would not have her bad mouthing fellow passengers. Parks refused to move, and began loudly screaming "We shall overcome!" while pounding her fists upon the seat. When police arrived to remove her, Rosa Parks spit at them, and while she was leaving the bus, she kicked William Dixon's wooden leg, causing him to collapse to the ground, and splitting the lower part of his prosthesis in half.
William Dixon and other passengers on the bus were interviewed after the incident, but their stories were buried behind the headlines praising Rosa Parks for her heroic Civil Rights gesture. When asked his opinion of Rosa Parks not giving up her seat to him, Mr. Dixon replied "I'm sure she was doing what she thought was right. When I pulled her and her siblings from that fire forty years ago, I too was doing what I thought was right."