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 (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. After a long day’s work at a Montgomery department store, where she worked as a seamstress, Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus for home on December 1, 1955. After the boycott, Parks and her husband moved to Hampton, Virginia and later permanently settled in Detroit, Michigan. Parks work proved to be invaluable in Detroit’s Civil Rights Movement. She was an active member of several organizations which worked to end inequality in the city. Parks’s work was not limited to the South. As a national figure in the civil rights movement, she traveled throughout the country to speak, attend rallies and marches, and organize meetings. This article features some of the places associated with Rosa Parks’s life and activism. December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks Is Arrested. On Thursday, December 1, 1955, the 42-year-old Rosa Parks was commuting home from a long day of work at the Montgomery Fair department store by bus. Black The family moved to Montgomery; Rosa went to school and became a seamstress. She married barber Raymond Parks in 1932, and the couple joined the Montgomery National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). When she inspired the bus boycott, Parks had been the secretary of the local NAACP for twelve years (1943-1956). 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. The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute Of Self-Development was established in 1987 to offer job training for black youth. In 1999, Parks received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, the highest honor a civilian can receive in the United States. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) also sponsors an annual Rosa Parks Freedom Award. rosa louise parks biography Rosa Louise Parks was nationally recognized as the “mother of the modern day civil rights movement” in America. Her refusal to surrender her seat to a white male passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, December 1, 1955, triggered a wave of protest December 5, 1955 that reverberated throughout the United States. April 14, 2005: Parks and the hip-hop group Outkast reach an out-of-court settlement regarding their 1998 song "Rosa Parks." October 24, 2005: Parks dies at the age of 92 Montgomery’s boycott was not entirely spontaneous, and Rosa Parks and other activists had prepared to challenge segregation long in advance. On December 1, 1955, a tired Rosa L. Parks left the department store where she worked as a tailor’s assistant and boarded a crowded city bus for the ride home. 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. Rosa Parks chose to be arrested instead of giving up her seat and became a symbol of the fight against an unjust, racist system. She was nicknamed “the first lady of civil rights” by the U.S. Congress. The Early Life And Activism Of Rosa Parks . Rosa Parks was born in 1913 (February 4), in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her maiden name was McCauley. Rosa Parks’s legacy has been honored through various awards, including the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Numerous memorials and museums also commemorate her contributions to the civil rights movement. What can we learn from Rosa Parks today? Rosa Parks’s story teaches us the importance of standing up for Rosa Parks with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (ca. 1955) Mrs. Rosa Parks, Alabama, 1955 (This work is in the public domain in the United States / Wikipedia) Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913 — October Source: Rosa Parks. Writings, Notes, and Statements, 1956 to 1998; Drafts of early writings; Accounts of her arrest and the subsequent boycott, as well as general reflections on race relations in the South. Along with the Bible, Washington's 1901 autobiography, Up from Slavery, was a fixture in the McCauley house, and years later Rosa Parks told an interviewer that she shared the author's belief in the power of hard work and rigorous thrift. Like many African Americans of the time, Leona McCauley devoured and embraced Washington's "self-help Students will analyze Rosa Parks' evolving activism during the Black Freedom Movement using primary source sets created from the Library of Congress exhibit "Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words.” Students will use the evolving hypothesis strategy to answer the focus question. Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which urged African American commuters to find different means of transportation and to not ride the city buses to work.
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