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Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist who is best known for her role in the Montgomery bus boycott. While she did not have a formal education, she was an active member of the NAACP and worked hard to promote civil rights for all.
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Rosa Parks’ Early Years
Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913, to Leona McCauley, a teacher, and James McCauley, a carpenter. Rosa Parks had an older brother, Sylvester, and a younger sister, Frances McCauley.
Rosa Parks’ family
Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913, Rosa Parks was raised in an era of severe Jim Crow laws, which enforced racial segregation in the South. Her parents were sharecroppers of African and Asian descent. From the time she was a young girl, Parks attended segregated schools where black children received an inferior education. Determined to get ahead, she attended the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls from 1924 to 1926.
Rosa Parks’ education
Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1913. At that time, the state of Alabama required all black children to attend segregated schools. Rosa Parks attended the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University), a historically black college. After she graduated from high school, she married Raymond Parks, a barber, and moved to Montgomery, Alabama.
Rosa Parks’ Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913. Bus boycott, began on December 1, 1955, when Parks, age 42, refused to give up her bus seat to a white person, as was the law at the time.
The bus boycott
Instigated by a courageous woman named Rosa Parks, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was a pivotal event in the Civil Rights Movement. Mrs. Parks’ act of defiance and ensuing arrest sparked a city-wide protest that lasted for 385 days and effectively ended racial segregation on Montgomery’s buses.
Rosa Parks’ bus boycott ultimately forced the desegregation of public transportation nationwide and helped launched the career of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the most influential figures in American history.
The aftermath of the bus boycott
The aftermath of the boycott was a series of lawsuits against the city of Montgomery and its bus company. Mrs. Parks was eventually vindicated, but not before she suffered years of harassment, death threats, and even an arrest for attempting to integrated a Montgomery department store.
The boycott also had a significant impact on Mrs. Parks’ family. Her husband, Raymond Parks, lost his job as a barber because he was associated with the boycott. The couple was forced to move several times and their home was bombed.
Despite the cost, Mrs. Parks continued to fight for civil rights until her death in 2005. She is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in American history.
Rosa Parks’ Later Years
Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913. Rosa Parks later attended the Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes from 1929 to 1931. After that, she moved to Detroit, where she found employment as a secretary and a convenience store clerk.
Rosa Parks’ later years
Rosa Parks later years were spent as an international celebrity and crusader for Civil Rights. She continued to live in Detroit, where she was active in the civil rights movement. In 1965, Mrs. Parks was made honorary chair of the Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation. Mrs. Parks toured extensively, giving lectures about her Bus boycott experience. In 1987, at the age of seventy-five, Mrs. Parks moved to Ruleville, Mississippi to be closer to family members. There she continued her busy schedule of giving lectures and working on civil rights causes. Rosa Parks died on October 24, 2005, at the age of ninety-two, in her Detroit home
Rosa Parks’ legacy
Rosa Parks continued to be an active civil rights leader after the bus boycott. In 1955, she helped organize the first of the Montgomery freeway protests, which were aimed at integrating the city’s bus system. The following year, she attended the Highlander Folk School, a training ground for civil rights activists in Tennessee.
Parks also joined the African American Democratic Club and helped register black voters in Alabama. In 1957, she testified before the United States Commission on Civil Rights in support of a law to ban racial segregation on buses.
In 1965, Parks moved to Detroit, where she continued her work with the civil rights movement. She served as a secretary and receptionist for John Conyers, a Democratic congressman from Michigan. She also co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, which ran youth leadership programs.
Parks was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999. In 2005, at the age of 92, she was robbed and beaten in her home by a young man who later pleaded guilty to assault and burglary charges.
