Rosa Parks, the Mother of Civil Rights

1072 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Summary of my story by rosa parks

Rosa Parks was an African American woman who was brave enough to stand up to the whites. Even though she went to jail for what she did, she believes she did the right thing. What Rosa had done on the bus started boycotts and created more and more activists. People wonder if Rosa Parks was raised to stand up for herself or if she was supposed to stay quiet. Looking at Rosa’s life and what happened on the bus and beyond, it can be concluded that she was taught to take pride in her race. Rosa (McCauley) Parks was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her parents were James and Leona McCauley. She was homeschooled by her mother, who was a school teacher, until the age of eleven. At eleven, Rosa moved to Montgomery with her aunt, where she started going to a private school. Her childhood brought her early experiences with racial discrimination and activism for racial equality. After a few years at that school, Rosa transferred to Booker T. Washington High School, but had to drop out to help her ill mother. In 1932 Rosa got married to a man by the name of Raymond Parks and she had a delighted life until he died in 1977. During this time of her life, she worked as a seamstress in a Montgomery clothing store. Leaving work one night is when everything happened (Troy University). Rosa Parks was 42 years old and waiting at the bus stop after work on December 1, 1955. Driving the bus that picked her up was James Blake. Rosa was sitting on the bus, just behind the ten seats that were only for white people. The bus started filling up with people and the whites needed more seats. The bus driver told Rosa and three other blacks to move to the back of the bus to make more room for the white folks. The three others moved, but Rosa refus... ... middle of paper ... ... guard down during tough times. Works Cited Academy of Achievement. 5 March 2014. 25 April 2014 . Bredhoff, Stacy, Schamel Wynell and Lee Ann Potler. National Archives. 4 June 1999. 21 April 2014 . Hare, Kenneth. IIP Digital. n.d. 12 May 2014 . Montgomery Bus Boycott. 2014. 25 April 2014 . Rogers, Kevin. WHP. n.d. 15 May 2014 . Rosa Parks Facts. 1 July 2013. 12 May 2014 . The Story Behind The Bus. 2002. 10 May 2014 . Troy University . n.d. 21 April 2014 .

Show More
Related

  • how important were the actions of Roas Parks?

    965 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rosa Parks was a black American who it has been said, started the black civil rights movement. Rosa Parks was fro Montgomery, and in Montgomery they had a local low that black people were only allowed to sit in a few seats on the public buses and if a white person wanted their set, they would have to give it up. On one bus journey Parks was asked to move for a white person, she refused and the police were call and she was arrested and convicted of breaking the bus laws.

    Read More

  • Rosa Parks Significance

    570 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rosa Parks was a African American woman who sat in the front of the bus after a long hard day at work. As she traveled on the bus back home, a Caucasian male approached and asked her to get up from her seat to go to the back of the bus because he wanted to sit there. Instead of avoiding the trouble and just going to the back of the bus, she decided to stay where she was . Due to the time period, because of her not giving her seat up to the gentlemen, she was arrested and charged with civil disobedience. After her arrest was made a boycott would ensue

    Read More

  • The Hero's Journey: Rosa Parks

    764 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rosa Parks Call to Adventure occurred On December 1,1955, while she was sitting on a Montgomery bus after a long day of work. There was a white passenger that boarded the bus and due to the whites section being full Mrs.Parks and three other passengers was asked to move their seats to the back of the bus. The three other passengers complied with the bus driver but Mrs.Parks did not. Being that Mrs.Parks had put up with discrimination and prejudice her whole life she decided to answer the call and stand up for for herself. This was the start of a whole new

    Read More

  • Rosa Parks: Life and Times

    1974 Words  | 4 Pages

    Life - Rosa Parks was born only a month before world war one started in Europe on February 4, 1913. Parks mother worked as a school teacher in Tuskegee, Alabama. James McCauley, Rosa's dad was a carpenter. They lived in Tuskegee and owned farmland of their own. After Sylvester was born, Rosa's little brother, her father left them and went off to live in another town. He had been cheated out of his farmland by a white man and couldn't support the family any longer. Rosa her mother and her brother then moved to live with her grandparents on a farm in Pinelevel, which lay between Tuskegee and Montgomery, Alabama. It was a small plot of land, but it kept them all fed. From this point on Rosa was mainly brought up by her Grandparents with the assistance of her mother. Rosa gave up school when she came close to graduating, around the same time Rosa got married. Raymond Parks married Rosa McCauley December 18, 1932. He was a barber from Wedowee County, Alabama. He had little formal education but a thirst for knowledge. Her husband, Raymond Parks, encouraged her to finish her courses. In 1934 she received her diploma from Alabama State College. She was happy that she completed her education but had little hope of getting a better job. When Rosa had finished school she was lucky enough to get a job as a seamstress in a local sewing factory. Prior to the bus incident Rosa was still fighting. She had run-ins with bus drivers and was evicted from buses. Parks recalls the humiliation: "I didn't want to pay my fare and then go around the back door, because many times, even if you did that, you might not get on the bus at all. They'd probably shut the door, drive off, and leave you standing there."

    Read More

  • Rosa Parks Research Paper

    1086 Words  | 3 Pages

    Rosa Louise McCauley Parks historically known as Rosa Parks, was born February 4,1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama and past away from natural causes at age 92, on October 24,2005 in Detroit, Michigan. Parks lived with her mother Leona McCauley and her father James McCauley. Ater on in 115 her brother was born Sylvester Parks her only sibling.Both of park’s parents worked, her mother was employed as a teacher and her father was employed as a carpenter . Some time later after Parks’s brother was born her mother and father separated. Once the separation was final, Parks moved with her mother to Pine Level, Alabama while her brother and father moved to Montgomery, Alabama. parks was homeschooled by her mother until age 11 and attended Industrial

    Read More

  • Essay On Rosa Parks

    898 Words  | 2 Pages

    It all started on December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks was on her way home from a long day at work. After she sat down and the bus was ready to depart, the bus driver asked the first row of African Americans to get up because there was a white man who didn't have a seat. Everyone got up except Parks, because she didn't want to give in and let them win. “People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired,” wrote Parks in her autobiography, “but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically… No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”(history.com) Parks was done with being treated badly and tired of being discriminated against, she just wanted her rights back, according to

    Read More

  • The Impact Of The Niagara Movement

    2229 Words  | 5 Pages

    Rosa Parks was a member of the NAACP, lived in Montgomery Alabama, and rode the public bus system. In the south, during this time the buses were segregated which meant that black people had to ride in the back of the bus behind a painted line. White people entered the front of the bus and were compelled to sit in front of the painted line. Most buses at the time had more room for white riders who used the service less than the black ridership. Yet, they could not cross the line even if the seats in the front were empty (Brown-Rose, 2008). Rosa Parks made a bold statement when she sat in the “white section” of a Montgomery bus. She was asked to surrender her seat to a white man, but she did not move and was soon arrested. Her brave action started the Montgomery bus Boycott, with the help of the NAACP, none other than Dr. Martin Luther King’s leadership as part of the Montgomery Improvement Association. As its President, he was able spread the word quickly which brought national attention to the small town of Montgomery’s bus Boycott. The boycott was televised and brought so much attention that the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public transportation was unconstitutional; a success spurring a more

    Read More

  • Rosa Parks

    776 Words  | 2 Pages

    Racism and prejudice have been dominant issues in the United States for many years. Being such a major issue is society, racism is also a major theme in one of the best pieces of American Literature, To Kill A Mockingbird. People, particularly African Americans, have been denied basic human rights such as getting a fair trial, eating in a certain restaurant, or sitting in certain seats of public buses. However, in 1955 a woman named Rosa Parks took a stand, or more correctly took a seat, on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She refused to give her seat to a white man and was arrested for not doing so. The reasons and consequences and the significance of her stand are comparable in many ways to Atticus Finch's stand in To Kill A Mockingbird. Rosa Parks worked for the equality of all people. She was elected secretary of the Montgomery branch of the National Advancement of Colored People, unsuccessfully attempted to vote many times to prove her point of discrimination, and had numerous encounters with bus drivers who discriminated against blacks. She was weary of the discrimination she faced due to the Jim Crow laws, which were laws were intended to prohibit "black[Americans] from mixing with white [Americans]" ("Jim Crow Laws"1). Also, due to the Jim Crow laws, blacks were required to give their seats to white passengers if there were no more empty seats. This is exactly what happened on December 1, 1955. On her way home from work, Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white man and was shortly arrested (National Women's Hall of Fame1). Even though she knew what the consequences were for refusing to leave her seat, she decided to take a stand against a wrong that was the norm in society. She knew that she would be arrested, yet she decided that she would try to make a change. Although her arrest would seem like she lost her battle, what followed would be her victory. Rosa Parks's stand was so significant that she is called the mother of the civil rights movement (National Women's Hall of Fame1). Her arrest served as a catalyst for a massive boycott for public busses. Led by Martin Luther King, for 381 days, African Americans carpooled, walked, or found other ways of transportation. Despite the harassment everyone involved in the movement faced, the boycott continued and was extremely successful.

    Read More

  • The Movement that Revolutionized the Civil Rights: Black Panthers

    1327 Words  | 3 Pages

    Rosa Parks, was a Civil Rights activist who was best known for the incident on the Montgomery bus. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white male who demanded she seat herself in the ‘appropriate colored’ space located at the back of the bus for black men and women. Her defiance to the law that day became known to the world.

    Read More

  • A Woman Who Changed Things: Rosa Parks

    1269 Words  | 3 Pages

    Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist early in her life. She was born in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her parents separated when she was at a young age and her mother took her and her family to a town near Montgomery, Alabama to live with her grandparents (Rosa Parks Facts). Rosa’s grandparents were former slaves and strong advocates for racial equality (Rosa Parks Biography). While she lived with her grandparents, she developed strong roots in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (Rosa Parks Facts). She remembers, in her autobiography, when she was little that her grandfather stood at the front door with a loaded shotgun and watched the Ku Klux Klan, or KKK, marched by. This frightened her, but, at the same time, this taught her about the prejudices against African Americans at the time. She also remembers many white people that were kind to her family when she was growing up. This taught her to be aware of the prejudices of most, not all, whites in the South. But she refused to allow that to lessen her attitude towards goodness of mankind (Rosa Parks Facts). She was homeschooled until she was sent to a one-room schoolhouse. Her school often lacked the supplies they needed, like desks. At the time, African American children were not al...

    Read More

  • Rosa Parks: The Montgomery Bus Boycott

    207 Words  | 1 Pages

    Rosa Parks was born as Rosa Louise McCauley on February 4th, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama to Leona Edwards and James McCauley. At birth, however, she grew ill with many sicknesses. She attended rural schools until her mother and grandmother fell ill, where she dropped out and took care of them.

    Read More

  • Rosa Parks Research Paper

    453 Words  | 1 Pages

    Rosa was in the eleventh grade when she quit going to school to help attend to her sick grandmother and mom in Pine Wheel, Alabama. She never went back to school, she got a job at a T- shirt factory in Montgomery. She met and married Raymond Parks in 1932 at the age of 19. Raymond helped Rosa earn her

    Read More

  • Rosa Parks: The Biggest Roll Model

    248 Words  | 1 Pages

    Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. During Rosa’s childhood she faced a lot of racial discrimination. While she was young she spent most of her time at her grandfather’s farm. Rosa’s mother, Leona McCauley, was a teacher. She taught Rosa to read at a young age. While young Rosa attended a one room school in Pine Level, Alabama. At age 11 she attended an Industrial School for Girls. In the 11th grade she attended Alabama

    Read More

  • Research Paper On Rosa Parks

    1145 Words  | 3 Pages

    Even though Rosa Parks suffered tragic event after another, she was determine to finish her education in which she received her diploma in 1934. Rosa Parks fell in love with her significant other Raymond Parks and eventually go married on December 18, 1932. Her husband Raymond Parks was born February 12, 1903 in Wedowee Alabama. A loving and caring man, he was an un-educated man due to lack of money/resources. Mr. Parks and Mrs. Parks started a funding for colored people to be educated. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks encountered a situation that would change the world today. This is the story that defined Rosa Parks in our history books for years to come.

    Read More

More about Rosa Parks, the Mother of Civil Rights

Open Document