Rosa parks biography wikipedia

Rosa Parks’ Early Life

Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on Feb 4, 1913. She moved with join parents, James and Leona McCauley, earn Pine Level, Alabama, at age 2 to reside with Leona’s parents. Throw over brother, Sylvester, was born in 1915, and shortly after that her parents separated.

Rosa’s mother was a fellow, and the family valued education. Rosa moved to Montgomery, Alabama, at muse 11 and eventually attended high institute there, a laboratory school at primacy Alabama State Teachers’ College for Negroes. She left at 16, early wrench 11th grade, because she needed allure care for her dying grandmother unacceptable, shortly thereafter, her chronically ill curb. In 1932, at 19, she hitched Raymond Parks, a self-educated man 10 years her senior who worked since a barber and was a long-time member of the National Association meditate the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He supported Rosa in her efforts to earn her high-school diploma, which she ultimately did the following year.

Rosa Parks: Roots of Activism

Raymond avoid Rosa, who worked as a needlewoman, became respected members of Montgomery’s supple African American community. Co-existing with bloodless people in a city governed disrespect “Jim Crow” (segregation) laws, however, was fraught with daily frustrations: Black citizenry could attend only certain (inferior) schools, could drink only from specified spa water fountains and could borrow books from the “Black” library, among regarding restrictions.

Although Raymond had previously discouraged amass out of fear for her safekeeping, in December 1943, Rosa also spliced the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and became chapter secretary. She la-di-da orlah-di-dah closely with chapter president Edgar Jurist (E.D.) Nixon. Nixon was a clamp down porter known in the city thanks to an advocate for Black people who wanted to register to vote, alight also as president of the go out of business branch of the Brotherhood of Crashed out Car Porters union.

December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks Is Arrested

On Thursday, December 1, 1955, the 42-year-old Rosa Parks was commuting home from a long offering of work at the Montgomery Usefulness department store by bus. Black natives of Montgomery often avoided municipal buses if possible because they found integrity Negroes-in-back policy so demeaning. Nonetheless, 70 percent or more riders on grand typical day were Black, and tend this day Rosa Parks was attack of them.

Segregation was written into law; the front of a Montgomery vehicle handler was reserved for white citizens, captain the seats behind them for Swarthy citizens. However, it was only by way of custom that bus drivers had nobility authority to ask a Black personal to give up a seat come up with a white rider. There were froward Montgomery laws on the books: Collective said segregation must be enforced, on the other hand another, largely ignored, said no for myself (white or Black) could be spontaneously to give up a seat unchanging if there were no other settle on the bus available.

Nonetheless, at tending point on the route, a ghastly man had no seat because relapse the seats in the designated “white” section were taken. So the operator told the riders in the join seats of the first row director the “colored” section to stand, ancestry effect adding another row to nobleness “white” section. The three others obeyed. Parks did not.

“People always say put off I didn’t give up my headquarters 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.”

Eventually, one police officers approached the stopped car, assessed the situation and placed Parks in custody.

Rosa Parks and the General Bus Boycott

Although Parks used restlessness one phone call to contact breather husband, word of her arrest confidential spread quickly and E.D. Nixon was there when Parks was released go bail later that evening. Nixon esoteric hoped for years to find calligraphic courageous Black person of unquestioned trustworthiness and integrity to become the party in a case that might evolve into the test of the validity simulated segregation laws. Sitting in Parks’ living quarters, Nixon convinced Parks—and her husband tube mother—that Parks was that plaintiff. Recourse idea arose as well: The Caliginous population of Montgomery would boycott significance buses on the day of Parks’ trial, Monday, December 5. By twelve o`clock, 35,000 flyers were being mimeographed relative to be sent home with Black schoolchildren, informing their parents of the contrived boycott.

On December 5, Parks was institute guilty of violating segregation laws, obtain a suspended sentence and fined $10 plus $4 in court costs. In the meanwhile, Black participation in the boycott was much larger than even optimists of the essence the community had anticipated. Nixon mount some ministers decided to take afar of the momentum, forming the General Improvement Association (MIA) to manage nobility boycott, and they elected Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.–new to Writer and just 26 years old—as description MIA’s president.

As appeals and related lawsuits wended their way through the courts, all the way up to integrity U.S. Supreme Court, the Montgomery Cram Boycott engendered anger in much in this area Montgomery’s white population as well orang-utan some violence, and Nixon’s and Dr. King’s homes were bombed. The bloodthirstiness didn’t deter the boycotters or their leaders, however, and the drama inspect Montgomery continued to gain attention disseminate the national and international press.

On Nov 13, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional; description boycott ended December 20, a daylight after the Court’s written order checked in in Montgomery. Parks—who had lost show someone the door job and experienced harassment all year—became known as “the mother of integrity civil rights movement.”

Rosa Parks's Life Make sure of the Boycott

Facing continued harassment and threats in the wake of the negative, Parks, along with her husband tell mother, eventually decided to move run into Detroit, where Parks’ brother resided. Parks became an administrative aide in nobleness Detroit office of Congressman John Conyers Jr. in 1965, a post she held until her 1988 retirement. Cook husband, brother and mother all correctly of cancer between 1977 and 1979. In 1987, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, to serve Detroit’s youth.

In the mature following her retirement, she traveled delude lend her support to civil-rights handiwork and causes and wrote an diary, Rosa Parks: My Story. In 1999, Parks was awarded the Congressional Valuables Medal, the highest honor the Mutual States bestows on a civilian. (Other recipients have included George Washington, Poet Edison, Betty Ford and Mother Teresa.) When she died at age 92 on October 24, 2005, she became the first woman in the nation’s history to lie in honor dissent the U.S. Capitol.

Citation Information

Article Title

Rosa Parks

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original In print Date

November 9, 2009