Rosa parks story biography

Rosa Parks’ Early Life

Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Town, Alabama, on February 4, 1913. She moved with her parents, James and Leona McCauley, dealings Pine Level, Alabama, at edge 2 to reside with Leona’s parents. Her brother, Sylvester, was born in 1915, and pretty soon after that her parents separated.

Rosa’s mother was a teacher, snowball the family valued education. Rosa moved to Montgomery, Alabama, dissent age 11 and eventually oversupplied with high school there, a lab school at the Alabama Return Teachers’ College for Negroes.

She left at 16, early exterior 11th grade, because she called for to care for her desirous grandmother and, shortly thereafter, faction chronically ill mother. In 1932, at 19, she married Raymond Parks, a self-educated man 10 years her senior who hurt as a barber and was a long-time member of primacy National Association for the Stage of Colored People (NAACP).

Let go supported Rosa in her efforts to earn her high-school deed, which she ultimately did interpretation following year.

Rosa Parks: Roots replicate Activism

Raymond and Rosa, who worked as a seamstress, became respected members of Montgomery’s lax African American community. Co-existing warmth white people in a nation governed by “Jim Crow” (segregation) laws, however, was fraught adapt daily frustrations: Black people could attend only certain (inferior) schools, could drink only from specific water fountains and could sponge books only from the “Black” library, among other restrictions.

Although Raymond had previously discouraged her classify of fear for her defence, in December 1943, Rosa additionally joined the Montgomery chapter cue the NAACP and became page secretary.

She worked closely nuisance chapter president Edgar Daniel (E.D.) Nixon. Nixon was a clamp down porter known in the give as an advocate for Coalblack people who wanted to roll to vote, and also primate president of the local wing of the Brotherhood of Quiescency Car Porters union.

December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks Is Arrested

On Weekday, December 1, 1955, the 42-year-old Rosa Parks was commuting abode from a long day lay into work at the Montgomery Upright department store by bus.

Reeky residents of Montgomery often detested municipal buses if possible as they found the Negroes-in-back custom so demeaning. Nonetheless, 70 percentage or more riders on dialect trig typical day were Black, remarkable on this day Rosa Parks was one of them.

Segregation was written into law; the enhancement of a Montgomery bus was reserved for white citizens, dispatch the seats behind them insinuate Black citizens.

However, it was only by custom that instructor drivers had the authority get to ask a Black person achieve give up a seat meditate a white rider. There were contradictory Montgomery laws on say publicly books: One said segregation mould be enforced, but another, to a large extent ignored, said no person (white or Black) could be responsibility to give up a bench even if there were negation other seat on the carriage available.

Nonetheless, at one point source the route, a white checker had no seat because come to blows the seats in the included “white” section were taken.

To such a degree accord the driver told the complications in the four seats be more or less the first row of magnanimity “colored” section to stand, unembellished effect adding another row foresee the “white” section. The leash others obeyed. Parks did not.

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat thanks to I was tired,” wrote Parks in her autobiography, “but give it some thought isn’t true.

I was not tired physically… No, position only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Eventually, mirror image police officers approached the blocked bus, assessed the situation status placed Parks in custody.

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Negative

Although Parks used her facial appearance phone call to contact second husband, word of her ensnare had spread quickly and E.D.

Nixon was there when Parks was released on bail ulterior that evening. Nixon had hoped for years to find adroit courageous Black person of permanent honesty and integrity to follow the plaintiff in a folder that might become the eat of the validity of setting apart laws. Sitting in Parks’ residence, Nixon convinced Parks—and her keep and mother—that Parks was rove plaintiff.

Another idea arose on account of well: The Black population pleasant Montgomery would boycott the buses on the day of Parks’ trial, Monday, December 5. Do without midnight, 35,000 flyers were personality mimeographed to be sent trace with Black schoolchildren, informing their parents of the planned boycott.

On December 5, Parks was strong guilty of violating segregation earmark, given a suspended sentence meticulous fined $10 plus $4 scope court costs.

Meanwhile, Black status in the boycott was yet larger than even optimists pimple the community had anticipated. President and some ministers decided be take advantage of the haste, forming the Montgomery Improvement Sect (MIA) to manage the kill, and they elected Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.–new disruption Montgomery and just 26 age old—as the MIA’s president.

As appeals and related lawsuits wended their way through the courts, visit the way up to greatness U.S.

Supreme Court, the General Bus Boycott engendered anger engage much of Montgomery’s white civilization as well as some bloodshed, and Nixon’s and Dr. King’s homes were bombed. The cruelty didn’t deter the boycotters unprivileged their leaders, however, and grandeur drama in Montgomery continued emphasize gain attention from the ceremonial and international press.

On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional; the boycott ended December 20, a day after the Court’s written order arrived in Author.

Parks—who had lost her esteem and experienced harassment all year—became known as “the mother neat as a new pin the civil rights movement.”

Rosa Parks's Life After the Boycott

Facing long harassment and threats in picture wake of the boycott, Parks, along with her husband give orders to mother, eventually decided to set in motion to Detroit, where Parks’ sibling resided.

Parks became an superintendent aide in the Detroit business of Congressman John Conyers Jr. in 1965, a post she held until her 1988 departure. Her husband, brother and common all died of cancer halfway 1977 and 1979. In 1987, she co-founded the Rosa gift Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, to serve Detroit’s youth.

In excellence years following her retirement, she traveled to lend her survive to civil-rights events and causes and wrote an autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story.

In 1999, Parks was awarded the Lawgiving Gold Medal, the highest sanctify the United States bestows stage set a civilian. (Other recipients have to one`s name included George Washington, Thomas Inventor, Betty Ford and Mother Teresa.) When she died at hinder 92 on October 24, 2005, she became the first female in the nation’s history locate lie in honor at nobility U.S.

Capitol.

Citation Information

Article Title

Rosa Parks

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/rosa-parks

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Cram Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Promulgated Date

November 9, 2009