Rosa Parks. March 25, 1965— Montgomery, Alabama. "Speeches on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol at the conclusion of the Selma-to-Montgomery March These five speeches capture different aspects of Rosa Parks’s legacy. Each one brings forward her strength, dignity, and lasting influence on American society. Keep reading to discover how her story can be told through various speaking approaches, from concise tributes to detailed narratives that show the depth of her impact. Rosa Parks! Hello! My name is Rosa Parks and I was an important and influential American. You should know about me because I did not give up my seat on a bus to a white man. My action helped to start the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement aimed its efforts toward changing the laws in Montgomery, Alabama and in Speech at the Alabama Freedom March - March 25, 1965Rosa ParksMarch 25, 1965— Montgomery, Alabama SPEECHRev. Abernathy and all the distinguished leaders of t Speech at the Alabama Freedom March March 25, 1965— Montgomery, Alabama SPEECH Rev. Abernathy and all the distinguished leaders of this nation and all of you wonderful Freedom Fighters, my brothers and sisters and my children – because I have been called the mother of this – you see before you now a victim of all that has been perpetrated against one to make us less than human. Delivered by Rosa Louise Parks “Mother of the Modern Day Civil Rights Movement” May 20. 1989 Thank you so very much, President Stein, for that wonderful Introduction, and to the Board of Control, faculty, friends, parents, and graduates of this great Michigan Technological University. I'm very happy to be here. This speech was given in Montgomery, AL on December 5, 1955 Rosa Parks, secretary of the Montgomery, AL, chapter of the NAACP, was arrested on December 1, 1955, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person. Black community leaders responded by forming the Montgomery Improvement Association on December 5, 1955. Rosa Parks being fingerprinted after arrest in Montgomery, Alabama, 1956 (Wikimedia Commons)In 1965, Rosa Parks would have had a lot to say about police brutality.By then, she had left Alabama in poverty and ill health — both brought on by the severe repercussions she faced following her 1955 bus stance — and had been living in Detroit for eight years. Rosa Parks Speech Rosa Louise McCauley Parks born 4th of February 1913 in Alabama and sadly passed away on October 24th 2005 at the age of 92. Within her lifetime she gained civil rights for African Americans, with the help of Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights participants. Rosa Parks, a woman that changed a nation. Rosa Parks's refusal to surrender her seat to a white male passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus on December 1, 1955 changed America and redirected the course of history. Here she is seen giving a speech in Selma, Alabama, circa 1965, at the political and emotional peak of the modern 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. 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 Biographer Jeanne Theoharis, professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, describes in this article written for the Library of Congress Magazine, vol. 4 no. 2 (March-April 2015):16-18, the recently acquired Rosa Parks Papers and how they shed new light on Parks and her activism. Rosa Parks would have turned 100 years old this month. We do well by placing a statue of her here. But we can do no greater honor to her memory than to carry forward the power of her principle and a courage born of conviction. May God bless the memory of Rosa Parks. And may God bless these United States of America. Oprah Winfrey. Eulogy for Rosa Parks "God uses good people to do great things." delivered 31 October 2005, Metropolitan AME Church, Washington D.C. The Montgomery Bus Boycott speech reprinted below is one of the first major addresses of Dr. Martin Luther King. Dr. King spoke to nearly 5,000 people at the Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery on December 5, 1955, just four days after Mrs. Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery city bus. For 382 days, almost the entire African American population of Montgomery, Alabama, including leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, refused to ride on segregated buses. The protests Bible to convey his message about Rosa Parks.” • “In his 2013 speech honoring Rosa Parks, Obama used narrative, descriptive language, and Biblical allusions to convey his admiration for the civil rights activist.” “President Obama relies on the audience’s familiarity with the story of Rosa Rosa Parks, the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement" was one of the most important citizens of the 20th century. Mrs. Parks was a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama when, in December of 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. The bus driver had her arrested. She was tried and convicted of violating a local ordinance. Her act sparked a citywide boycott of the Rosa Parks would have turned 100 years old this month. We do well by placing a statue of her here. But we can do no greater honor to her memory than to carry forward the power of her principle and a courage born of conviction. May God bless the memory of Rosa Parks, and may God bless these United States of America. (Applause.) END
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