Washington: When Rosa Parks was a little girl in rural Alabama, she would stay up at night, keeping watch with her grandfather as he stood guard with a shotgun against marauding members of the Ku Rosa Parks Exhibit At The Library Of Congress In D.C. Parks often stayed up all night, helping her grandfather Sylvester Edwards keep watch. In the years after World War I, the Ku Klux Klan When Rosa Parks was a little girl in rural Alabama, she would stay up at night, keeping watch with her grandfather as he stood guard with a shotgun against marauding members of the Ku Klux Klan. "Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words" opened on Dec. 5 in Washington, D.C. Mhari Shaw / NPR. Parks often stayed up all night, helping her grandfather Sylvester Edwards keep watch. In the years after Rosa’s grandfather would often keep watch at night, rifle in hand, awaiting a mob of violent white men. In one experience, Rosa recalls her grandfather standing in front of their house with a shotgun while Ku Klux Klan members marched down the street. Rosa’s mother was a teacher, and the family valued education. Among her earliest memories, Rosa recalls how her grandfather would stay up all night with a loaded shotgun. The family slept in their clothes in case they needed to run from the KKK. As a result, Rosa suffered from insomnia for the rest of her life. "When Rosa Parks was a little girl in rural Alabama, she would stay up at night, keeping watch with her grandfather as he stood guard with a shotgun against marauding members of the Ku Klux Klan. Klansmen often terrorized black communities in the early 1900s, and Parks's grandfather, Sylvester Edwards, the son of a white plantation owner, had to stay with a family during the week. Rosa witnessed night rides by the Ku Klux Klan and listened in fear as lynchings occurred near her home.5 They never broke into the family’s house, but her grandfather would often sit on the porch with his gun right beside him, just in case.6 Rosa’s grandfather would often keep watch at night, rifle in hand, awaiting a mob of violent white men. On nights thought to be especially dangerous, the children would have to go to bed with their clothes on. That way they would be ready if the family needed to escape. Rosa and her family experienced racism in less violent ways, too. The story of Rosa Parks as a radical activist and believer in self-defense and Black Power; of the Women’s Political Council that started the boycott and of the many women who came before Mrs. Parks; and of the development of King’s profound vision of nonviolent resistance through the aid of his brilliant new mentor, Bayard Rustin who as a gay man was forced to stay in the shadows. A The story of Rosa Parks as a radical activist and believer in self-defense and Black Power; of the Women’s Political Council that started the boycott and of the many women who came before Mrs. Parks; and of the development of King’s profound vision of nonviolent resistance through the aid of his brilliant new mentor, Bayard Rustin who as a gay man was forced to stay in the shadows. A 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 to stay with a family during the week. Rosa witnessed night rides by the Ku Klux Klan and listened in fear as lynchings occurred near her home.5 They never broke into the family’s house, but her grandfather would often sit on the porch with his gun right beside him, just in case.6 Rosa Parks Story: What mainly does the following passage reveal (paragraph 5)? "I thought back to the time when I used to sit up all night and didn't sleep, and my grandfather would have his gun right by the fireplace, or if he had his one-horse wagon going anywhere, he always had his gun in the back of the wagon." Rosa Parks' act of defiance is usually seen as a spontaneous act of rebellion, but it wasn't. Local civil rights leaders had long been planning to challenge a city ordinance requiring black passengers sit in the back of the bus, and if the white, front section of the bus was full, they had to give up their seats entirely. When a white child pushed her, she pushed him back. Later, a white man threatened to hurt her, and Parks grabbed a brick to intimate him. Another article from The Washington Post states that her grandfather would stay up all night to protect the family from the KKK. Of this, she said, "I wanted to see him kill a Ku-Kluxer." Rosa Parks has become one of the most iconic figures in modern American history, but she didn’t intend to change the world on that day. She had simply had a firm belief in maintaining her dignity, and would not be treated differently because of the color of her skin. But it is kind of mind blowing. We learn about the civil rights movement and look at the black and white pictures and it feels like so long ago, but then you realize that, if Rosa Parks was alive in the internet age, during 9/11, during Toy Story and Lion King and Shrek, that the civil rights era was not that long ago at all. 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. 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. That ended our talking about our
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