Rosa Parks
She was born February 4, 1913 and died October 24, 2005 at the age of 92.
She was an African American Civil Rights Activist. On Dec. 1, 1955 in Montgomery Alabama, rosa Parks refused the order of a bus driver to give up her seat to a white passenger.
Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee Alabama. She was a small sickly child. Her parents separated when she was young and she and her mom moved to a farm with her grandparents.
Rosa has rememberances of walking to her segregated black school while the white children rode to school on a bus. In 1933 rosa finished her high school studies. At that time only about 7% of African Americans had a high school diploma.
She remembered that it took her three times before she was able to vote. According to the Jim Crow Laws, blacks had to take a test before they could register to vote.
In 1943 she became the secretary for the (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) NAACP.
In 1955 the bus system in Montgomery Alabama had the following unwritten rules…
The first four rows of the bus were for whites. There was a sign that indicated where Blacks should sit. Blacks had to pay their fee to ride the bus then get off of the bus and enter through the back door. The placement of the Black Riders sign could be moved. If there were more than four rows needed for white passengers the sign would be moved by the driver. No black person could sit beside of a white person.
On that day in 1955, Rosa was returning home from her job. She boarded the bus and went to sit behind the last whites. After three mor stops, the bus needed more seats for whites. The driver asked four Blacks to move. Three of them did move but Rosa did not. The driver told her that if she did not move that he would call the police and have her arrested. She did not move and he did what he promised. She was taken to jail but was bailed out of jail the next day.
A few months later on an interview she was asked why she did not move and she replyed I wanted to know what my rights were as a human being and as a citizen.
On the day of her trial, handbills were given out that asked Blacks not to ride any type of public transportation. This boycott lasted for 381 days until the segregation law on public transportation was lifted.
Later in 1965 she and her husband moved to Detroit Michigan. Here she eventually found employment as a receptionist and secretary for US Representative John Conyers. She kept this position until 1988 when she retired.
She lived in Detroit until her death.
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