Rosa Parks

Parks on a Montgomery bus on December 21, 1956, the day Montgomery's public transportation system was legally integrated.

Rosa Parks and a police officer after getting she got arrested for not giving up her seat to a white person on a bus.

Where Rosa was sitting on the bus, this was drawn on a blackboard in the courtroom after she got arrested.

Rosa in front of the bus many years after the incident.

Background  Rosa Parks was an African American woman who was born on the 4th of February 1913 in Tuskegee in Alabama, Her mother was a teacher and her father was a carpenter  But When her parents separated when she was 2, she moved with her mother to her grandparents farm in a place called Pine Level which was situated just outside the capital of Montgomery.  After She turned 11 Rosa attended a private school in Montgomery called the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, which had been burned down twice by arsonists because it was founded and staffed by white northerners for black children.

 Rosa Parks was actually married, in 1932 Rosa got married to Raymond parks who was a barber from Montgomery  Rosa’s maiden name was Rosa McCauley until she was married at the age of 19.  Raymond, Rosa’s husband was a member of NAACP, The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People  In 1933 Rosa received her high school diploma and attended college at the Alabama State College in Montgomery, but she had to drop out to take care of her grandmother after she got ill, then later her mother as well got ill and had to be looked after.  Rosa worked as a seamstress, her job was to sit at a sewing machine and sow all day, to get back and forth from work Rosa took the bus

The Montgomery Bus Incident  On the bus Rosa took to and from work each day, Black people could not sit just anywhere they wanted in the bus, They had to sit in the back of the bus. If white people were already sitting in the front of the bus, the black person had to pay the fare, get off the bus, and re-enter at the back door.  Sometimes the bus driver just drove off and left them before they could get back on at the back door.  If the bus filled up with people, the driver would ask a black person to move so he could reposition the movable sign which divided the black and white sections.  On December 1, 1955 after a hard day at work, Rosa was riding the bus home when the driver, the same man James F. Blake who had left her in the rain in 1943, asked her and three black men to move to make more room in the white section. The three men moved, but Rosa refused to move so the bus driver called the police and a policeman came and arrested her and put her in prison.

 Edgar Nixon, president of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and leader of the Pullman Union, and her friend Clifford Durr bailed Parks out of jail the evening of December 2, the day after the incident.  Rosa had not planned the incident but as it happened she decided to make a stand for her rights, but she was not the first black person that had decided not to move on a bus in that time.  A group named the Montgomery Improvement Association organized a boycott of the bus system, and for their leader they chose a young Baptist minister who was new to Montgomery his name was Martin Luther King Jr.  So for 381 days the African Americans boycotted the busses instead They carpooled, rode in cabs, but most walked to and from work every morning and afternoon.  Since African Americans were about 75 per cent of the people who took the bus in Montgomery, the boycott posed a serious economic threat to the company.

Rise to Power  1943 Becomes secretary of the Montgomery NAACP  1946 Attends a NAACP leadership training seminar in Jacksonville, Florida  1948 Makes a speech before the Alabama NAACP convention and is elected secretary of the state convention  1955 Attends civil rights workshop at the Highlander Folk School, a populist labor/civil rights organizing center located in Monteagle, Tennessee  1955 December 1 st Arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus  1955 December 5 th Stands trial and is convicted of disorderly conduct  Attends the first mass meeting of the Montgomery Improvement Association led by Martin Luther King, Jr, The Montgomery Bus Boycott begins.  1956 November 13 th U.S. Supreme Court rules segregation on Montgomery buses to be unconstitutional  1956 December 21 st Montgomery City buses are integrated for the first time; the bus boycott is ended after 381 days

By Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white person, it lead to a boycott of the buses by black people for 381 days. The Montgomery Bus boycott is known as what sparked and really got going the civil rights movements for black people in America which was all caused by one woman Rosa Parks November 13th U.S. Supreme Court rules segregation on Montgomery buses to be unconstitutional, this was caused by Rosa Parks it started the equality of black people in not just Montgomery Alabama but in the whole south of the USA. Rosa Ended up being the secretary of the NAACP, and also spoke in front of many people about the civil rights and equality for black people. ROLE ONCE IN POWER

 Rosa and her husband were both involved with the NAACP from a young age.  Rosa and her family were often very ill and this lead to difficulties with Rosa's education, her work and her fight for civil rights.

How successful were they?  She was very successful, she became the face of the Montgomery bus boycott and was thought of as one of the great leaders of the civil rights movement.  Rosa Parks changed the path of the American nation.  Rosa Received over two dozen awards plus more international ones some of these awards were:  The Rosa Parks Peace Prize in 1994, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996, and the Congressional Gold Medal in A library and museum is dedicated to her in Montgomery, Alabama, a street in Detroit is named after her and a whole part of a highway as well.

HOW DID THEY DIE? Parks resided in Detroit until she died of natural causes at the age of 92 on October 24, 2005, in her apartment on the east side of the city. Her casket was placed in the rotunda of the United States Capitol for two days. This is an honour usually only reserved for Presidents when they die.

Rosa Parks the song There is a song called “Rosa Parks” by the hip hop band Outkast but in the lyrics their isn't much content actually about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. And the band Outkast was sued over the song because they used her name without permission.

 The Missouri legislature voted to name a portion of United States Interstate 55 in Saint Louis County and Jefferson County, near St. Louis, the "Rosa Parks Highway“.  1976, Detroit renamed 12th Street "Rosa Parks Boulevard.  1979, the NAACP awarded Parks the Spingarn Medal its highest honour.  1983, she was inducted into Michigan Women's Hall of Fame for her achievements in civil rights  1995, she received the Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award in Williamsburg, Virginia.  1996, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given by the U.S. executive branch.

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