What can you see? What appears to be happening? What kind of person do you think this was? Who do you think this was?

Died 2005Born 1913

Rosa Parks – Hero or Zero? LO: I can analyse events and come to a judgement about significance

Historical Heroes?

Can we say that … ROSA PARKS …was really a HERO? Read Walsh and the various sources to find out what she did. Think about how significant her actions were.

HERO ZERO

On December 5 th 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. She was arrested for this.

Parks’ arrest was the trigger for the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott eventually succeeded in persuading the bus company to end segregation on Montgomery buses.

40,000 people took part in the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to prominence because of the bus boycott.

Another woman, Claudette Colvin, had been arrested for doing exactly the same thing a few months before.

Parks’ arrest in 1955 wasn’t her first for breaking segregation laws on the buses.

Parks was angry at the murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi. Although publicly she said that she was just tired.

The NAACP was key in getting her case noticed.

How free and equal were black people in the 1950s? Case study: Claudette Colvin In 1955 Claudette Colvin was a 15 year-old high school student in Alabama. Colvin's family didn't own a car, so she relied on the city's gold-and-green buses to get to school. Colvin was coming home from school on 2 March 1955 when she got on a Capital Heights bus. Colvin was sitting about two seats from the emergency exit when four whites boarded and the driver ordered her, along with three other black passengers, to get up. She refused and was removed from the bus by two police officers, who took her to jail. "The bus was getting crowded and I remember him (the bus driver) looking through the rear view mirror asking her to get up out of her seat, which she didn't," said a classmate at the time, Annie Larkins Price. "She didn't say anything. She just continued looking out the window. She decided on that day that she wasn't going to move.“ Price testified on Colvin's behalf in the juvenile court case, where Colvin was convicted of violating the segregation law and assault. "There was no assault," Price said. Colvin had been handcuffed, arrested and forcibly removed from the bus. She screamed that her constitutional rights were being violated. At the time, Colvin was active in the NAACP's Youth Council, and she was actually being advised by Rosa Parks. A number of black leaders, including Parks, raised money for Colvin's defense. At the time, local black leaders believed that Colvin's case was an appropriate test case to take all the way to the Supreme Court, as part of a broader effort to overturn segregation laws in the South. Soon after her arrest, however, Colvin became pregnant by a much older, married man. Local black leaders felt that this moral transgression would not only scandalise the deeply religious black community, but also make Colvin suspect in the eyes of sympathetic whites. In particular, they felt that the white press would manipulate Colvin's illegitimate pregnancy as a means of undermining Colvin's victim status and any subsequent boycott of the bus company. She was ultimately sentenced to probation for the ordinance violation, but a boycott and legal case never materialised from the event.

Obituary of Rosa Parks in TIME Magazine, November 2005 “With quiet courage and non-negotiable dignity, ROSA PARKS was an activist and a freedom fighter who transformed a nation and confirmed a notion that ordinary people can have an extraordinary effect on the world… “…Mrs Parks defiance led immediately to a 381-day bus boycott-led by a 26-year-old Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr.– and ultimately to a nine year campaign culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forced states to comply with the Brown v Board of Education of Topeka decision a decade earlier. Her righteous indignation literally changed the world…” Highlight in different colours: 1.Evidence and examples used to support points 2.Explanations of why she was important 3.Explanations of why she was not that important 4.Underline links to other parts of the movement. 5.An overall judgment about how important she was

Obituary of Rosa Parks in TIME Magazine, November 2005 “With quiet courage and non-negotiable dignity, ROSA PARKS was an activist and a freedom fighter who transformed a nation and confirmed a notion that ordinary people can have an extraordinary effect on the world… “…Mrs Parks defiance led immediately to a 381-day bus boycott- led by a 26-year-old Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr – and ultimately to a nine year campaign culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forced states to comply with the Brown v Board of Education of Topeka decision a decade earlier. Her righteous indignation literally changed the world…” Highlight in different colours: 1.Evidence and examples of what happened during the boycott 2.Explanations of why she was important 3.Explanations of why she was not that important 4.Underline links to other parts of the movement. 5.An overall judgment about how important she was

Obituary of Rosa Parks in TIME Magazine, November 2005 “With quiet courage and non-negotiable dignity, ROSA PARKS was an activist and a freedom fighter who transformed a nation and confirmed a notion that ordinary people can have an extraordinary effect on the world… “…Mrs Parks defiance led immediately to a 381-day bus boycott- led by a 26-year-old Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr – and ultimately to a nine year campaign culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forced states to comply with the Brown v Board of Education of Topeka decision a decade earlier. Her righteous indignation literally changed the world…” Highlight in different colours: 1.Evidence and examples used to support points 2.Explanations of why she was important 3.Explanations of why she was not that important 4.Underline links to other parts of the movement. 5.An overall judgment about how important she was

Obituary of Rosa Parks in TIME Magazine, November 2005 “With quiet courage and non-negotiable dignity, ROSA PARKS was an activist and a freedom fighter who transformed a nation and confirmed a notion that ordinary people can have an extraordinary effect on the world… “…Mrs Parks defiance led immediately to a 381-day bus boycott- led by a 26-year-old Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr – and ultimately to a nine year campaign culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forced states to comply with the Brown v Board of Education of Topeka decision a decade earlier. Her righteous indignation literally changed the world…” Highlight in different colours: 1.Evidence and examples used to support points 2.Explanations of why she was important 3.Explanations of why she was not that important 4.Underline links to other parts of the movement. 5.An overall judgment about how important she was

Obituary of Rosa Parks in TIME Magazine, November 2005 “With quiet courage and non-negotiable dignity, ROSA PARKS was an activist and a freedom fighter who transformed a nation and confirmed a notion that ordinary people can have an extraordinary effect on the world… “…Mrs Parks defiance led immediately to a 381-day bus boycott- led by a 26-year-old Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr – and ultimately to a nine year campaign culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forced states to comply with the Brown v Board of Education of Topeka decision a decade earlier. Her righteous indignation literally changed the world…” Highlight in different colours: 1.Evidence and examples used to support points 2.Explanations of why she was important 3.Explanations of why she was not that important 4.Underline links to other parts of the movement. 5.An overall judgment about how important she was

Obituary of Rosa Parks in TIME Magazine, November 2005 “With quiet courage and non-negotiable dignity, ROSA PARKS was an activist and a freedom fighter who transformed a nation and confirmed a notion that ordinary people can have an extraordinary effect on the world… “…Mrs Parks defiance led immediately to a 381-day bus boycott- led by a 26-year-old Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr – and ultimately to a nine year campaign culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forced states to comply with the Brown v Board of Education of Topeka decision a decade earlier. Her righteous indignation literally changed the world…” Highlight in different colours: 1.Evidence and examples used to support points 2.Explanations of why she was important 3.Explanations of why she was not that important 4.Underline links to other parts of the movement. 5.An overall judgment about how important she was Why has Rosa Parks been called a hero?

Assessed piece of work: 1.Why has Rosa Parks been called a hero? Tips for success: Don’t just describe what she did - explain how important Rosa Parks was. D on’t just look at what she did. Explain Rosa Parks’ role within the context of the whole civil rights movement (i.e. the other forms of campaigning and protest from what you have looked at so far). Link and compare what she did with others’ actions. Explain why some people would place such importance on her – what about Claudette Colvin? To be handed in on Monday 10 th October