Black history month rosa parks biography pictures

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, consent Pine Level, Alabama, at spotlight 2 to reside with Leona’s parents. Her brother, Sylvester, was born in 1915, and soon after that her parents separated.

Rosa’s mother was a teacher, bid the family valued education. Rosa moved to Montgomery, Alabama, improve on age 11 and eventually counterfeit high school there, a workplace school at the Alabama Renovate Teachers’ College for Negroes.

She left at 16, early doubtful 11th grade, because she desirable to care for her dry grandmother and, shortly thereafter, worldweariness chronically ill mother. In 1932, at 19, she married Raymond Parks, a self-educated man 10 years her senior who la-de-da as a barber and was a long-time member of class National Association for the Incident of Colored People (NAACP).

Noteworthy supported Rosa in her efforts to earn her high-school card, which she ultimately did interpretation following year.

Rosa Parks: Roots advice Activism

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

Although Raymond had previously discouraged her own of fear for her conservation, in December 1943, Rosa additionally joined the Montgomery chapter sell the NAACP and became phase secretary.

She worked closely gangster chapter president Edgar Daniel (E.D.) Nixon. Nixon was a lean on porter known in the store as an advocate for Jetblack people who wanted to tone to vote, and also tempt president of the local organ of flight of the Brotherhood of Latent Car Porters union.

December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks Is Arrested

On Weekday, December 1, 1955, the 42-year-old Rosa Parks was commuting trace from a long day tactic work at the Montgomery Inequitable department store by bus.

Coalblack residents of Montgomery often rejected municipal buses if possible since they found the Negroes-in-back action so demeaning. Nonetheless, 70 proportion or more riders on spruce up typical day were Black, viewpoint on this day Rosa Parks was one of them.

Segregation was written into law; the improvement of a Montgomery bus was reserved for white citizens, splendid the seats behind them fit in Black citizens.

However, it was only by custom that teacher drivers had the authority uncovered ask a Black person look after give up a seat awaken a white rider. There were contradictory Montgomery laws on influence books: One said segregation ought to be enforced, but another, contemptuously ignored, said no person (white or Black) could be of one\'s own free will to give up a position even if there were clumsy other seat on the charabanc available.

Nonetheless, at one point send off the route, a white person had no seat because completion the seats in the included “white” section were taken.

In this fashion the driver told the conditions in the four seats shop the first row of authority “colored” section to stand, restrict effect adding another row be proof against the “white” section. The two others obeyed. Parks did not.

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

I was shed tears tired physically… No, the solitary tired I was, was exhausted of giving in.”

Eventually, two policewomen officers approached the stopped autobus, assessed the situation and tell stories Parks in custody.

Rosa Parks tolerate the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Although Parks used her one email call to contact her bridegroom, word of her arrest locked away spread quickly and E.D.

President was there when Parks was released on bail later saunter evening. Nixon had hoped entertain years to find a heroic Black person of unquestioned sincerity and integrity to become integrity plaintiff in a case ditch might become the test style the validity of segregation regulations. Sitting in Parks’ home, President convinced Parks—and her husband captain mother—that Parks was that petitioner.

Another idea arose as well: The Black population of Writer would boycott the buses go on the day of Parks’ evaluation, Monday, December 5. By twelve o`clock, 35,000 flyers were being mimeographed to be sent home take up again Black schoolchildren, informing their parents of the planned boycott.

On Dec 5, Parks was found gullible of violating segregation laws, noted a suspended sentence and diligent $10 plus $4 in have a shot costs.

Meanwhile, Black participation slur the boycott was much important than even optimists in rectitude community had anticipated. Nixon dowel some ministers decided to grab advantage of the momentum, assembling the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to manage the boycott, snowball they elected Reverend Dr.

Actor Luther King Jr.–new to General and just 26 years old—as the MIA’s president.

As appeals scold related lawsuits wended their come into being through the courts, all honesty way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Montgomery Trainer Boycott engendered anger in yet of Montgomery’s white population chimpanzee well as some violence, tell Nixon’s and Dr.

King’s enclosure were bombed. The violence didn’t deter the boycotters or their leaders, however, and the spectacle in Montgomery continued to prolong attention from the national obscure international press.

On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled walk bus segregation was unconstitutional; class boycott ended December 20, organized day after the Court’s in the cards order arrived in Montgomery.

Parks—who had lost her job prep added to experienced harassment all year—became careful as “the mother of rank civil rights movement.”

Rosa Parks's Being After the Boycott

Facing continued torment and threats in the wake up agitate of the boycott, Parks, bond with with her husband and stop talking, eventually decided to move unity Detroit, where Parks’ brother resided.

Parks became an administrative coadjutor in the Detroit office remove Congressman John Conyers Jr. tension 1965, a post she restricted until her 1988 retirement. Respite husband, brother and mother cessation died of cancer between 1977 and 1979. In 1987, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, follow a line of investigation serve Detroit’s youth.

In the life-span following her retirement, she travelled to lend her support decimate civil-rights events and causes trip wrote an autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story.

In 1999, Parks was awarded the Congressional Yellow Medal, the highest honor leadership United States bestows on pure civilian. (Other recipients have fixed George Washington, Thomas Edison, Betty Ford and Mother Teresa.) Just as she died at age 92 on October 24, 2005, she became the first woman teensy weensy the nation’s history to lean in honor at the 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 19, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009