Rosa Parks occupies an iconic status in the civil rights movement after she refused to vacate a seat on a bus in favor of a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1955, Parks rejected a bus driver's order to leave a row of four seats in the "colored" section once the white section had filled up and move to the back of the bus. When she inspired the bus boycott, Parks had been the secretary of the local NAACP for twelve years (1943-1956). Parks founded the Montgomery NAACP Youth Council in the early 1940s. Later, as secretary of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, she traveled throughout the state interviewing victims of discrimination and witnesses to lynchings. In 1932 she married Raymond Parks, a barber and member of the NAACP. At that time, Raymond Parks was active in the Scottsboro case. In 1943 Rosa Parks joined the local chapter of the NAACP and was elected secretary. Two years later, she registered to vote, after twice being denied. By 1949 Parks was advisor to the local NAACP Youth Council. Showcases rarely seen materials that offer an intimate view of Rosa Parks and documents her life and activism—creating a rich opportunity for viewers to discover new dimensions to their understanding of this seminal figure. The materials are drawn extensively from the Rosa Parks Collection, a gift to the Library of Congress from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. Rosa's Activism Begins with the NAACP. Rosa Parks' involvement in civil rights activism began to take shape when she joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1943. As part of the Montgomery chapter, Parks served as both the youth leader and secretary to E.D. Nixon, the president of the chapter. The Montgomery NAACP dispatches Parks to investigate the case. 1992: Rosa Parks: My Story, an autobiography for younger readers, is published. August 30, 1994: In 1932, at age 19, Rosa met and married Raymond Parks, a barber and an active member of the NAACP as well as the League of Women Voters. The couple never had children, and their marriage lasted When she inspired the bus boycott, Parks had been the secretary of the local NAACP for twelve years (1943-1956). Parks founded the Montgomery NAACP Youth Council in the early 1940s. Later, as secretary of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, she traveled throughout the state interviewing victims of discrimination and witnesses to lynchings. Rosa Parks was a hero in the fight against segregation But the NAACP wanted more – it offered legal assistance to the MIA, on condition that the organisation fight for full integration. “Such a good job of brain washing was done on the Negro that a militant Negro was almost a freak of nature to them, many times ridiculed by others of his own group.” —Rosa Parks. Raymond became a member of the Montgomery NAACP in 1934, though in time he would grow disillusioned with the organization’s cautiousness and elitism. 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 (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 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. 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 Born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Ala., Rosa Louise McCauley eventually moved to Montgomery where she married Raymond Parks, a barber who was deeply involved in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1943, Rosa Parks was elected secretary of the NAACP’s Montgomery chapter, setting in motion her lifelong 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 Parks went to her first Montgomery NAACP meeting in December 1943, where she was elected secretary of the chapter. Back then, only 31 out of several thousand of the city’s Black residents were Days later, news of the alleged assault reached the Montgomery offices of the NAACP and they responded by sending along an investigator, Rosa Parks. In 1940s Alabama, segregationist laws and The answer is not so much about what Rosa Parks did – it was what she didn’t do that set a series of events in motion that finally led to the end of segregation on all busses in Alabama. Rosa Parks’ Arrest. Rosa Parks got arrested on a municipal Montgomery bus on December 1, 1955, when heading home after work. Later in life, Parks was bestowed with numerous honorary degrees and national awards, including the NAACP’s esteemed Spingarn Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, presented to her in 1996 by President Bill Clinton. A Michigan public act established Rosa Parks Day, celebrated on the first Monday following her February 4 birthday.
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