Rosa Parks Biography

Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist who refused to let a white passenger take her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her defiance triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Its triumph sparked a national movement to remove racial segregation in public spaces.

In this Rosa Parks biography article, you can read about Rosa Parks biography book which describes education, early life and family also about marriage. Rosa Parks' short biography is very useful for the students to read and understand in a short duration of time.

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Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist who started the Montgomery Bus Boycott by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus to a white passenger. Her bravery inspired attempts to eradicate racial segregation across the country. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People gave Parks the Martin Luther King Jr. in addition to the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, he has received numerous awards.

Rosa Parks Short Biography

The school's self-esteem concept echoed Leona McCauley's suggestion to "take advantage of the possibilities, no matter how few they are." Indeed, opportunities were scarce. “We didn't have any civil rights back then,” Mrs. Parks recounted in an interview. It was simply a question of surviving from one day to the next. I recall going to bed as a kid and hearing the Klan ride and a lynching and being terrified that my house would burn down.”In the same interview, she attributed her relative fearlessness in appealing her conviction during the bus boycott to her childhood experience with terror. She explained, "I didn't have any specific apprehensions." “Knowing I wasn't alone was more of a relief.” Rosa Parks moved to Montgomery with her husband, Raymond Parks, after attending Alabama State Teachers College. The couple became members of the local NAACP chapter and discreetly worked for many years to improve the lives of African Americans in the segregated South.

Early Life and Family

Rosa Louise McCauley was born on February 4, in the year 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. When Parks was two years old, her parents, James and Leona McCauley, divorced. Parks' mother relocated the family to Pine Level, Alabama, to live with Rose and Sylvester Edwards, Parks' parents. Parks' grandparents were both former slaves who were major campaigners for racial equality; the family lived on the Edwards' farm, where Parks grew up.

Parks' early experiences with racial injustice and struggle for racial equality stem from her youth. As Ku Klux Klan members marched down the street, Parks' grandfather stood with a shotgun in front of their house.

Rosa's mother was a teacher, and education was important to her family. Rosa went to Montgomery, Alabama, at the age of 11 and eventually attended the Alabama State Teachers' College for Negroes' laboratory school. She dropped out of school when she was 16, in the early eleventh grade, to care for her dying grandmother and, later, her chronically ill mother. She married Raymond Parks, a self-educated barber and long-time member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in 1932, when she was 19 years old. He backed Rosa up in her pursuit of a high school diploma, which she received the following year.

Education

Parks was educated in segregated schools throughout her life. Parks attended a segregated, one-room school in Pine Level, Alabama, where she was taught to read by her mother at an early age and often lacked basic school materials such as desks. The city of Pine Level funded bus transportation and a new school facility for white pupils, while African American students were forced to walk to the first through sixth-grade schoolhouse.

When Parks was 11 years old, she enrolled in the city's Industrial School for Girls in Montgomery. Parks dropped out of school in the 11th grade to care for her sick grandmother and mother in Pine Level, where she was attending an Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes laboratory school for secondary education.

Parks never went back to school. Instead, she obtained work at a Montgomery shirt factory. She married in 1932 and received her high school diploma with her husband's help in 1933.

Marriage

Parks met and married Raymond Parks, a barber and prominent NAACP member, in 1932, when he was 19 years old. Parks became actively involved in civil rights issues after graduating from high school with Raymond's backing by joining the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP in 1943, acting as the chapter's youth leader and secretary to NAACP President E.D Nixon, a position she retained until 1957. The couple never had children.

Rosa Parks is best remembered for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus, which led to the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott. However, her tale is considerably more complicated than this one act of rebellion. Rosa Parks discusses the civil rights struggle and her active role in it in this plain, engaging autobiography. Her commitment is admirable, and her narrative is remarkable.

Rosa Parks Mini Biography 

Rosa Louise McCauley Park's biography was nationally recognized as the “mother of the modern-day civil rights movement” in America. Her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white male passenger on December 1, 1955, sparked a nationwide outpouring of outrage on December 5, 1955. Her small brave gesture shifted the course of history and revolutionised America's perception of black people.

Mr. Parks was a pioneer in the fight to release the "Scottsboro Boys," a well-known case from the 1930s. Raymond and Rosa collaborated on projects for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was an enthusiastic member, and she worked as the local branch's secretary and later as the youth leader. She was preparing for a huge youth convention when she was arrested.

As a role model for children, she was inspired by their desire to learn as much as possible about her life. She is a modest woman who always urges people to look into the lives of other world peacemakers. Her legacies to people of goodwill are The Rosa Parks Institute and The Rosa Parks Legacy.

Mrs. Parks received over 43 honorary doctorates, including one from Tokyo's SOKA UNIVERSITY, as well as hundreds of plaques, certificates, accolades, prizes, and city keys. To mention a few, the NAACP's Spingarn Medal, the United Auto Workers' Social Justice Award, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Non-Violent Peace Prize, and the Rosa Parks PEACE PRIZE in 1994, Stockholm, Sweden. In September 1996, President William J. Clinton, the forty-second President of the United States of America, presented Mrs. Parks with the MEDAL OF FREEDOM, the highest civilian award.

“The Rosa Parks Story” was taped in Montgomery, Alabama in May 2001 and aired on CBS on February 24, 2002. Mrs. Parks continues to earn various honours, including the first Lifetime Achievement Award granted by Stanford University's Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Mrs. Parks was inducted into the International Institute Heritage Hall of Fame on October 29, 2003, after receiving the Gandhi, King, and Ikeda peace award. Mrs. Parks' 91st birthday was commemorated at the Charles H. On February 4, 2004, the Wright Museum of African American History opened its doors. On the 49th anniversary of Mrs. Parks' arrest, a Civil Rights and Hip-Hop Forum was held at the Franklin Settlement in Detroit, Michigan on December 21, 2004. 

Rosa Parks was a quiet exemplification of courage, dignity, and determination, and she was a symbol for those who wanted to be free.

Rosa Parks's Life After The Boycott

Parks, her husband, and mother chose to migrate to Detroit, where Parks' brother lived, after facing more harassment and threats as a result of the boycott. Parks began working as an administrative aide in Congressman John Conyers Jr.'s Detroit office in 1965 and remained there until her retirement in 1988. Between 1977 and 1979, her husband, brother, and mother all died of cancer. To help Detroit's youth, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development in 1987.

She went to support civil-rights events and organisations in the years after her retirement and wrote an autobiography, "Rosa Parks: My Story." Autobiography of Rosa Parks was written by Jim Haskins. Parks received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999, the highest civilian honour bestowed by the United States. (George Washington, Thomas Edison, Betty Ford, and Mother Teresa are among those who have received the award.) When she died on October 24, 2005, at the age of 92, she became the first woman in American history to be laid to rest in the United States Capitol.

Did You Know? 

It wasn't the first time Rosa Parks had battled with bus driver James Blake when she refused to give up her bus seat in 1955. On a frigid day 12 years ago, Parks climbed onboard his overcrowded bus, paid her fare in the front, and then defied the rule that Black people must depart and re-enter through the back door. She stayed firm until Blake, angry, yanked her coat sleeve and demanded her participation. Instead of giving up, Parks got off the bus.