Parks, Rosa (1913—)
One of the most prominent African American women in history, Rosa Parks is regarded as the person who sparked the twentieth century Civil Rights Movement in the United States—although Parks herself downplayed her role. Her refusal to stand up and allow a white man to have her bus seat, however, gave Ms. Parks a permanent place in history. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, as a city bus filled with passengers, a white bus driver told Parks to stand and give her seat to a white man. She was already seated in the "Negro" section located at the back of the bus and refused to relinquish her seat. The bus driver responded by calling the police who arrested Parks and took her to jail. The act changed the lives of African Americans, especially in the old Confederacy, and changed American history forever.
Rosa Lee McCauley was born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama, to a farmer father and a schoolteacher mother. Both her grandparents were born slaves. When Rosa was 11, her mother sent her to a private school in Montgomery. Rosa's life changed forever while attending a summer institute at Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. The integrated institution was renowned for producing social activists and Rosa McCauley would become one of them.
In 1932, Rosa married a barber by the name of Raymond Parks and they settled in Montgomery. Ms. Parks gained employment as a seamstress for the Montgomery Ward department store. She also served as the secretary of the local chapter of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which she joined in 1943. Parks organized the NAACP Youth Council in Montgomery and sat on the National Committee to vindicate the Scottsboro Boys who were wrongfully accused of raping a white woman in Alabama.
Rosa Parks being fingerprinted by a police officer in Montgomery, Alabama.All over the United States the NAACP was gaining momentum, headed for black civil rights, especially after the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision ended legal segregation. Rosa Parks was well known in Montgomery and maintained a certain respect in the community for her many activities prior to the bus boycott, including failed attempts to try to vote.
Well known were the Montgomery bus system's race discrimination, not just segregation, policies. For example, African American riders were forced to enter busses through the front door to pay their fare, exit, and reenter through the rear door. Sometimes drivers would leave the stop before black passengers could reenter. In an ironic twist, this had happened to Parks. The same driver who had the 43-year-old Parks arrested had driven off on Parks 12 years earlier, an incident she had not forgotten.
Rosa Parks was by no means the first person to be arrested for refusing to give up her seat. In fact, someone had been arrested just the week before for the same offense. What made Rosa Parks unique was that she had standing in the African American community. She was respected for her efforts with the NAACP, and Montgomery leaders knew she would be an exemplary person to support their cause of integration in the court system. On December 5, 1955, the court found her guilty and fined her $14. The stage was set for a long court battle and a battle of wills as the Montgomery Bus Boycott followed the conviction of Parks. The boycott was organized by the new Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), and brought the young MIA leader Martin Luther King, Jr. to the national forefront. The bus boycott would last 380 days and only end with a United States Supreme Court order in November of 1956 that banned bus segregation.
In 1957, Parks and her husband, fired from employment and victims of harassment, moved to Detroit, Michigan, where Rosa took a job with local United States Congressmen John Conyers. Parks worked for the Congressman in his Detroit office for 25 years. In 1995, she gave a rousing speech at the Million Man March in Washington at the age of 83. Throughout her life, Rosa Parks has continued her social activism. She and Raymond, who died in 1977, founded the Institute for Self-Development to train African American youth to take leadership roles in their community.
Ms. Parks has received numerous honors and accolades throughout her life. In 1987, Parks was venerated with a night in her honor at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference names their award the Rosa Parks Freedom Award in her honor. Rosa Parks represents how one person can make a difference in history.
Further Reading:
Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem, and Alan Steinberg. Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement. New York, William and Morrow and Co., 1996.
Metcalf, George R. Black Profiles. New York, McGraw-Hill, 1968.
Parks, Rosa. Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue with Today's Youth. New York, Lee and Low Books, 1996.
——. My Story. New York, Dial Books, 1992.
——. Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope, and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation. Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House, 1994.
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