Rosa Parks (1913—2005) helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions Rosa Parks was not the first Black woman to refuse to give up her seat on a segregated bus, though her story attracted the most attention nationwide. Nine months before Parks, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin had refused to give up her bus seat, as had dozens of other Black women throughout the history of segregated public transit. Sparking a Social Transformation. It’s one of the most famous moments in modern American civil rights history: On the chilly evening of December 1, 1955, at a bus stop on a busy street in the capital of Alabama, a 42-year-old seamstress boarded a segregated city bus to return home after a long day of work, taking a seat near the middle, just behind the front “white” section. When the bus started to fill up with white passengers, the bus driver asked Parks to move. She refused. Her resistance set in motion one of the largest social movements in history, the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Louise McCauley was born on February 4th, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. Rosa Parks’ Life After the Montgomery Bus Boycott; The Rosa Parks Story, was released in 2002. The movie won the 2003 NAACP Image Award, Christopher Award, and Black Reel Award. Montgomery bus driver James Blake ordered Parks and three other African Americans seated nearby to move ("Move y'all, I want those two seats,") to the back of the bus. Three riders complied; Parks did not. The following excerpt of what happened next is from Douglas Brinkley's 2000 Rosa Park's biography. In Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city’s racial segregation laws. Rosa Parks' Bus . In 1955, African Americans were still required by a Montgomery, Alabama, city ordinance to sit in the back half of city buses and to yield their seats to white riders if the On December 1, 1955, during a typical evening rush hour in Montgomery, Alabama, a 42-year-old woman took a seat on the bus on her way home from the Montgomery Fair department store where she worked as a seamstress. Before she reached her destination, she quietly set off a social revolution when the bus driver instructed her to move back, and she refused. Rosa Parks, an African American, was On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Alabama for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. Discover how her act of defiance sparked the US civil rights movement. Rosa Parks (born February 4, 1913, Tuskegee, Alabama, U.S.—died October 24, 2005, Detroit, Michigan) was an American civil rights activist whose refusal to relinquish her seat on a public bus precipitated the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama, which became the spark that ignited the civil rights movement in the United States. There, when a woman called Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, a bus journey became very important. Rosa's refusal was a protest about racism against black people. In 1992, Parks published Rosa Parks: My Story, an autobiography aimed at younger readers, which recounts her life leading to her decision to keep her seat on the bus. A few years later, she published Quiet Strength (1995), her memoir, which focuses on her faith. Who was Rosa Parks? Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913. She grew up in a world that constantly reminded her she was considered “less than” because of the color of her skin. Schools, water fountains, restaurants, and even sidewalks were divided by strict segregation laws known as “Jim Crow” laws. Rosa Parks (center, in dark coat and hat) rides a bus at the end of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Montgomery, Alabama, Dec. 26, 1956. Don Cravens/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images. Most of us know Rosa Parks as the African American woman who quietly, but firmly, refused to give up her bus seat to a white person Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama. That small act of It’s the story of the Rosa Parks bus—bus number 2857. The story of how the bus got from a factory in Pontiac, Michigan, to the streets of Montgomery, Alabama, to a mechanic’s field outside of Montgomery, and finally to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, has some surprising twists and turns. In 1980, following the deaths of her husband (1977), brother (1977) and mother (1979), Parks, along with The Detroit News, and the Detroit Public school system, founded the Rosa L. Parks Scholarship Foundation. Parks also co-founded, with Elaine Steele, the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in 1987. Hi Friends:As you know, I enjoy sharing inspirational quotes with you, from all kinds of different sources. I had originally planned, this week, to feature q A young girl named Marcie has a magical bus ride where the bus itself tells her the story of the mother of the Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks. Because she was black, Rosa had to walk miles to a one-room schoolhouse while white children could take the bus, and as an adult, Rosa could only sit in the back. Y ou probably think you know the story of Rosa Parks, the seamstress who refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Ala., 60 years ago—on Dec. 1, 1955—and thus galvanized the bus
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