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’s maternal grandfather was named Sylvester Edwards (the son of Rosa Jones). Sylvester was born in Alabama. Rosa’s great-grandmother Rosa was the daughter of Joseph Jones and Mary Potter. Rosa’s grandfather Sylvester is described in the book Rosa Parks: A Life in American History, 2021, page 6, as having been the son of a white Anderson McCauley (1849–1917), Rosa Parks’s paternal grandfather, ca. 1900. Photograph. Visual Materials from the Rosa Parks Papers, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (003.00.00) Enlarge As a child, Rosa faced this harsh reality head-on. Her grandfather, who was a strong figure in her life, would sit on their porch at night with a gun, ready to protect the family from violent white mobs. Rosa’s family taught her the importance of standing tall, even when the world tried to push her down. Rosa Parks, born Rosa Louise McCauley on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama, is celebrated as a pivotal figure in the American civil rights movement. Her most notable act of defiance occurred on December 1, 1955, when she refused to yield her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913, to Leona (née Edwards), a teacher, and James McCauley, a carpenter. In addition to African ancestry, one of her great-grandfathers was Scots-Irish and one of her great-grandmothers was a Native American slave. Instead, Rosa's grandfather Edwards concentrated on protecting his family from white predators. Lynchings of blacks had become commonplace thanks to the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, a southern terrorist movement first spawned after the Civil War and reorganized nearly half a century later on Thanksgiving Day 1915 at Georgia's Stone Mountain. Rosa Parks was not the first woman to stand up against bus segregation Rosa Parks is the most famous person to refuse to give up her seat, but she wasn’t the first. Earlier in 1955, a 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her bus seat when told to make room for a white woman. Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913, to Leona (née Edwards), a teacher, and James McCauley, a carpenter.In addition to African ancestry, one of Parks's great-grandfathers was Scots-Irish, and one of her great-grandmothers was a part–Native American slave. Born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, AL, Rosa Parks was raised by her mother and grandparents in Pine Level, Alabama. Her grandfather supported the Garvey movement and, when Klan violence escalated after World War I, would sit out on the porch with his shotgun to protect the family home. A 6-year-old Rosa would sometimes sit vigil with him. One of the characters who most intrigued me in this exquisitely produced film was Rosa's grandfather, a peripheral but significant figure. He appears in flashbacks that are almost dreamlike, glimpses of warmth, love, humor and also, in a few horrific seconds, comfort as he shields Rosa from the sight of a lynching victim hanging in the woods. That changed in 1923, when a delegation of Garveyites came to Montgomery County and held a public forum. "My grandfather, who had been a slave when he was a little boy, looked exactly like the white people did," Parks recalled. "He did attend the meeting, but he was rejected because of his white appearance. Rosa Parks Rosa Parks worked as a tailor's assistant in downtown Montgomery, Alabama. At 5:00 the afternoon of December 1, 1955, she left the shop, and caught a downtown bus home. "The custom for getting on the bus for black persons in Montgomery in 1955 was to pay at the front door, get off the bus, and then re-enter through the back door to find Sometimes, groups of white men attacked Black people. They set fire to Black homes, churches, and schools. Rosa’s grandfather had to board up the family’s windows so no one could break in. Rosa learned to be brave. When Rosa was 6, she went to the elementary school for Black children in Pine Level. Booking photo taken at the time of Rosa Parks' arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus to a white passenger on 1 December 1955. (Image: (Photo by Universal History Much of the accepted narrative about Rosa Parks’ life and arrest is wrong. Yes, even that Drunk History episode. Her grandfather was the product of a white 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 This historical marker commemorates a modest country farmhouse that was built by Rosa Parks’ grandfather, Anderson McCauley in 1884. After Rosa Park’s birth on February 4th, 1913, in Tuskegee, she and her family moved to this farmhouse where they lived for two years. In 1915, Parks' parents separated and she moved to Pine Level. Ninety-one years later the home was preserved and given a When Rosa Parks was a little girl in rural Alabama, and Parks’s grandfather, Sylvester Edwards, the son of a white plantation owner, had their house boarded up for protection. Rosa Parks is best remembered as the African American woman who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. It was 1955 in the segregated South and the start of the Montgomery bus boycott.
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