Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks is famous for a lot of things. But, she is best known for her civil rights action. This happen in December 1,1955 Montgomery, Alabama bus system. She refused to give up her sit to a white passenger on the bus. She was arrested for violating a law that whites and blacks sit in separate sit in separate rows.

She refused to give up her sit when a white man wished to sit there. The front was for whites only. The law says that blacks have to leave there sits in the next when all seats in the front were taken and whites still wanted seats. Before Rosa Parks was arrest, Montgomery’s black leaders had been discussing about the city bus. Parks allowed the leaders to use her arrest to speak a boycott of the bus system. Martin Luther king ,Jr. then was a Baptist minister in Montgomery, then was chosen as president.

For 382 days, from 12/5/1955 to 12/20/1956 thousands of blacks refused to ride the buses. The boycott ended when the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregated seating on the city’s buses unconstitutional. The success encouraged other mass protests demanding civil rights for blacks.

Rosa Parks held a variety of jobs and, in 1943. She became one of the first woman to join the Advancement of Colored People(NNCP). She severed as the organizations secretary from 1943 to 1956. Parks lost her job as a seamstress as a result of the Montgomery boycott. She and her family moved to Detroit in 1957. Where she worked for many years for Congressman John Conyers. She founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development to offer guidance to young African Americans in preparation for leader ship and careers. 1979, she won a Medal for her work in civil rights. She wrote an autobiography.

Today, most of the people know her as a civil right action leader but, there is more then that one thing that she accomplished. Also, there is a Boulevard name after her in Detroit, it says "ROSA PARKS BLVD.