Rosa Parks was one of the African Americans who changed history. A lot of people know Parks for standing up against racial segregation. She changed history by refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man. A lot of people say Rosa Parks was too tired to move, but she actually wasn’t tired from work just tired of moving for the whites. She also didn’t get up because she wasn’t in the whites section. Rosa was arrested and convicted of civil disobedience. During her years of life African American people was segregated from the white people and if a white person told them to do some they had to do it. Her childhood in Montgomery helped her develop strong roots and her childhood was also greatly influenced by Jim Crow. Rosa spent most of her life fighting for desegregation and was active in the Civil Rights movement. No matter what city Parks lived in, she found a way to stay involved in the community and always seemed to have a way to voice her thoughts and feelings about society. She has been given numerous awards for her help in forging positive change in a time. ”I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people.” (Rosa Parks Facts) Rosa Parks was over the Youth Division at the Montgomery NAACP branch for years. Rosa Parks is an interesting person because she has an exciting childhood and she changed life for African Americans.
Rosa Park’s maiden name is Rosa Louise McCauley. She was born February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. She was the oldest of her mother three children. Her father, James McCauley, was a carpenter by trade and her mother, Leona Edwards, was a school teacher. Parks did not graduate from high school till she was 20 because she had to care for her sick grandma then later her sick mother. Mrs. McCauley had a feeling when her daughter was born that she was going to be a civil rights leader and change the nation. Mrs. McCauley hated how the world was segregated and she believed in freedom and she wanted Rosa to be treated right. She did not think any person should treat her daughter like she was a bad person. Rosa didn’t attend public school until she was eleven, but her mom home schooled her. When Rosa was eleven she went to Industrial School for Girls in Montgomery. She began laboratory school for her secondary education, but she had to drop out. August 13, 1930 Rosa had to drop out of school to take care of her family and her daddy has also returned home from being away for three years. Her daddy has been gone for years because he builds houses around the Alabama to make money for their family. On December 15, 1929 Rosa wrote in her journal “I have truly fallen in love with Raymond Parks. I think he’s going to propose to me for Christmas!” (Clare)
On December 18, 1932 Rosa Parks married Raymond Parks, Montgomery barber, in a small ceremony performed at her mother’s home. They had their honeymoon in Arizona for five days. Her husband encouraged her to finish high school and get her diploma; she graduated in 1933. She later worked as a seamstress. After three tries Rosa was able to register to vote. Rosa helped her husband raise money for the defense of the Scottsboro Boys. After doing that Rosa became a member of the Montgomery chapter of NAACP and was their secretary. That job lasted for thirteen years then Rosa took a job working on the Maxwell Air Force Base. While working for Maxwell Rosa was treated equal and it was a turning point in her attitude towards civil rights. Rosa didn’t intend on being arrested when she got on the bus and she would have paid attention to who the bus driver was she wouldn’t have ever road it. She had sat on the back of the bus behind the white people section. So the bus was crowded and a white man got on the bus an all the other black people moved except Rosa. She said to herself “I am not going to move today even if the bus driver tells me to; I’m tired of white people getting to tell me what to do just because I’m different color than them.” (Clare) The bus driver told her to move to the back or he was going to call the cops, so when she didn’t move he called the cops like he said. So Rosa got arrested and convicted with violating the law of segregation.
Rosa Parks spent one night in jail for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man on December 1, 1955. She paid a fine of ten dollars plus four dollars in court costs when she was found guilty of violating Montgomery's segregated busing ordinance. Rosa didn’t know who bailed her out, but she knew whoever that did bail her out agreed with her in what she did. E. D Nixon and white supporters Clifford and Virginia Dur bailed Rosa out because he knew she was the ideal candidate to challenge the discriminatory seating policy. So Nixon asked Parks if she would be willing to make her incident a test case against segregation and she said agreed to it after speaking with her husband and mother. Rosa co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in Detroit on January 1, 1987 with Ms. Elaine Eason Steele in honor of her husband. The Institute purpose is to motivate and direct youth not targeted by other programs to achieve their highest potential. The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development’s “Pathways to Freedom program traces the underground railroad into civil rights movement and beyond. On Rosa’s 91st birthday she thought about how she and Martin Luther King Jr. made the land free just as it always supposed to have been. They both made a big difference in the U.S and a lot of people lives. The difference they made was very difficult, but they did it anyways to prove to people that it doesn’t matter what color their skin is we are all equal.
Rosa Parks’ childhood and life have affected me and my life a lot. If it wasn’t for Rosa not getting up from here seat I believe society would still be segregated. Some of our society still has racist people and they should be put in jail. Then I have to remember they have the right to believe whatever they want to, but those people are sick to me. Rosa was a brave woman to not give up her seat and then get arrested. The bus driver know he was wrong for getting Rosa arrested I don’t care if it was the law, that white man could have sat somewhere else. Having segregated buses was stupid well having segregated anything was stupid. Now society is happy to have blacks, whites, or any race to come together because we are changing the world and making it better. Back then life was miserable and not right and I don’t think I could have lived during that time.
The Jim Crow Laws segregated blacks from whites in almost everything in their daily lives. They segregated public restrooms, drinking fountains, education, and transportation. White children were able to ride the bus to school while the black children had to walk all the way to another school. Black people could ride public transportation as long as they were seated in the back away from the whites. The Jim Crow Laws was created by white members of the Democratic Party between 1876 and 1965 so they could control political power in the Southern states. The Republican Party was against slavery and segregation so they fought and won the fight against blacks not having the right to vote. President Rutherford B. Haynes ended Reconstruction and left the race issues with Southern Democrats. The Democratic Party was called “party of civil rights” which was wrong because they didn’t try and help the black people then the Republican Party was called the “racist party” which was wrong because they where the party that was strong advocates for the blacks. Rosa Parks was an African American who refused the give up her seat for a white man and she was arrested for it. With her doing that she violated the city’s racial segregation ordinances and also started the U.S. civil rights movement. Segregation began because people are different on the outside, but they failed to know everybody is the same on the inside. Just because we look different on the outside doesn’t mean we don’t mean we think different, organs are different, or blood is different because they are not.
Being segregated was very awful and wrong, and then it was a law to be segregated. The blacks could not use the same thing as whites except for public transportation, and when they used that the blacks had to sit in the back of the bus. Black people where restricted from certain areas and institutions during segregation such as; schools, churches, etc. and facilities such as; parks, playgrounds, restaurants, and restrooms. Blacks had to eat in different sections in restaurant, couldn't vote unless African Americans pay poll taxes, had to seat in the back of the bus and if there were not enough seats for whites a black had to give their seat up. If the people were white, not much happened to them when they broke the law. If they were black, they were formally charged, arrested and punished with the full severity of the law. Informally, black men were also beaten and murdered before and after the law had taken its course. Being in jail, so far from being kept safe, was especially dangerous for black men, as it was a convenient place for lynch mobs to get at them. Some were lifted by the Supreme Court in 1965. Being an African American in those times was hard and unjustice. They should not have segregated blacks from whites because they are the same. They was acting like some was wrong with blacks and they did not want it on them or in them. Seeing people act like is stupid because there is not anything wrong with us blacks.
