rosa parks bus biography

Civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott that eventually ended racial segregation on public transportation.

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Childhood, family, and education, montgomery bus boycott, life after the bus boycott, outkast song controversy, awards, tributes, and movie, who was rosa parks.

Born in February 1913, Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in 1955 led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Her bravery led to nationwide efforts to end racial segregation on public transportation and elsewhere. Parks was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Award by the NAACP, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal. She has been described as the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.” She died in October 2005 at age 92.

FULL NAME: Rosa Louise McCauley Parks BORN: February 4, 1913 DIED: October 24, 2005 BIRTHPLACE: Tuskegee, Alabama SPOUSE: Raymond Parks (1932-1977) ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aquarius

Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her parents, James and Leona McCauley, separated when Parks was 2. Parks’ mother moved the family to Pine Level, Alabama, to live with her parents, Rose and Sylvester Edwards. Both of Rosa’s grandparents were formerly enslaved people and strong advocates for racial equality.

The family lived on the Edwards’ farm, and this is where Rosa spent her youth. She experienced chronic tonsillitis as a child that often left her bedridden. After undergoing a tonsillectomy in the fifth grade, she experienced temporary blindness, but her health improved soon afterward, according to Rosa Parks: A Life in American History by Darryl Mace.

Early in life, Rosa experienced racial discrimination and activism for racial equality. Once, her grandfather Sylvester stood in front of their house with a shotgun while Ku Klux Klan members marched down the street.

Young Rosa often fought back physically against bullying from white children, noting: “As far back as I remember, I could never think in terms of accepting physical abuse without some form of retaliation if possible,” according to The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis.

Taught to read by her mother at a young age, Rosa attended segregated schools throughout her education. The one-room school in Pine Level where she went often lacked adequate school supplies such as desks. Black students were forced to walk to the first through sixth-grade schoolhouse, while the city provided bus transportation as well as a new school building for white students.

At age 11, Rosa began at the Industrial School for Girls in Montgomery, Alabama. She moved onto a laboratory school for secondary education led by the Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes. In 1929, Rosa left the school in the 11 th grade to help both her sick grandmother and mother back in Pine Level.

For a time, she worked at a shirt factory in Montgomery, but Rosa did eventually earn her high school degree in 1933. This was a significant accomplishment for a young Black woman in the mid-1930s, during a time when eight out every 10 Black children of high school age in southern states weren’t even enrolled in secondary schools, according to Rosa Parks: A Biography by Joyce A. Hanson.

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 until his death in 1977.

Raymond was involved with the Montgomery labor rights movement and led a national pledge drive to support the legal defense of the Scottsboro Boys, nine Black teenagers falsely accused in Alabama of raping two white women in 1931. As Rosa’s own interest in civil activism rose, Raymond discouraged her from actively participating in the Scottsboro Boys defense efforts due to the dangers involved. Rosa said her husband believed, “It was hard enough if he had to run... He couldn’t leave me, and I couldn’t run as fast,” according to The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks . She didn’t let that stop her.

After graduating high school with Raymond’s support, Rosa became actively involved in civil rights issues by joining the NAACP’s Montgomery chapter in 1943, serving as its youth leader as well as secretary to NAACP President E.D. Nixon . She held the post until 1957.

During her time at the NAACP, she was involved in investigating the gang rape of Recy Taylor , a Black woman in Henry County, Alabama. Parks also attended meetings to discuss the murder of Emmett Till , a Black teenage who was tortured and lynched after being accused of offending a white woman in Mississippi in 1955.

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. She took a seat in the first of several rows designated for “colored” passengers.

The Montgomery City Code required that all public transportation be segregated and that bus drivers had the “powers of a police officer of the city while in actual charge of any bus for the purposes of carrying out the provisions” of the code. That meant drivers were required to provide separate but equal accommodations for white and Black passengers by assigning seats. A line roughly in the middle of a bus separated white passengers in the front from Black passengers in the back. When an African American passenger boarded the bus, they had to get on at the front to pay their fare, then get off and reboard the bus at the back door.

As the bus Parks was riding continued on its route, it began to fill with white passengers. Eventually, the bus was full, and driver James F. Blake noticed that several white passengers were standing in the aisle. Blake stopped the bus and moved the sign separating the two sections back one row, asking four Black passengers to give up their seats. The city’s bus ordinance didn’t specifically give drivers the authority to demand a passenger to give up a seat to anyone, regardless of color. However, Montgomery bus drivers had adopted the custom of moving back the sign separating Black and white passengers and, if necessary, asking Black passengers to give up their seats to white passengers. If the Black passenger protested, the bus driver had the authority to refuse service and could call the police to have them removed.

Three of the other Black passengers on the bus complied with the driver, but Parks refused and remained seated. Blake demanded, “Why don’t you stand up?” to which Parks replied, “I don’t think I should have to stand up.” He called the police and had her arrested. Parks later said of the incident : “When that white driver stepped back toward us, when he waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats, I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night.”

The police arrested Parks at the scene and charged her with violation of Chapter 6, Section 11, of the Montgomery City Code. She was taken to police headquarters, where, later that night, she was released on bail.

Parks’ protest made her the public face of what later became known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott . The evening that Parks was arrested, E.D. Nixon began forming plans to organize a boycott of Montgomery’s city buses. Members of the Black community were asked to stay off city buses on Monday, December 5, 1955—the day of Parks’ trial—in protest of her arrest. People were encouraged to stay home from work or school, take a cab, or walk to work. Ads were placed in local papers, and handbills were printed and distributed in Black neighborhoods.

In fact, Parks wasn’t the first to push back against segregated busing practices. A 15-year-old nurse aid and activist named Claudette Colvin had similarly refused to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger nine months before Parks had done so, but the NAACP felt Parks was the better candidate to highlight for the public, and so Colvin’s actions remained relatively little-known. Colvin later said she wasn’t publicized because she was a pregnant teen and because Parks was more fair-skinned and had the look that “that people associate with the middle class.”

On the morning of December 5, a group of leaders from the Black community gathered at the Mt. Zion Church in Montgomery to discuss strategies and determined that their boycott effort required a new organization and strong leadership. They formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), electing Montgomery newcomer Martin Luther King Jr. as minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The MIA believed that Parks’ case provided an excellent opportunity to take further action to create real change.

When Parks arrived at the courthouse for trial that morning with her attorney, Fred Gray, she was greeted by a bustling crowd of around 500 local supporters, who rooted her on. Following a 30-minute hearing, Parks was found guilty of violating a local ordinance and was fined $10, as well as a $4 court fee.

Inarguably the biggest event of the day, however, was what Parks’ trial had triggered. The city’s buses were, by and large, empty. Some people carpooled and others rode in Black-operated cabs, but most of the estimated 40,000 African American commuters living in the city at the time had opted to walk to work that day—some as far as 20 miles.

Due to the size and scope of, and loyalty to, the boycott, the effort continued for several months. The city of Montgomery had become a victorious eyesore, with dozens of public buses sitting idle, ultimately severely crippling finances for its transit company. With the boycott’s progress, however, came strong resistance.

Some segregationists retaliated with violence. Black churches were burned, and both King and Nixon’s homes were destroyed by bombings. Still, further attempts were made to end the boycott. The insurance was canceled for the city taxi system that African Americans used. Black citizens were also arrested for violating an antiquated law prohibiting boycotts.

In response, members of the Black community took legal action. Armed with the Brown v. Board of Education decision, which stated that separate but equal policies had no place in public education , a Black legal team took the issue of segregation on public transit systems to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, Northern Division. Parks’ attorney, Fred Gray, filed the suit.

In June 1956, the district court declared racial segregation laws, also known as “Jim Crow laws,” unconstitutional. The city of Montgomery appealed the court’s decision shortly thereafter, but on November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s ruling, declaring segregation on public transport to be unconstitutional.

With the transit company and downtown businesses suffering financial loss and the legal system ruling against them, the city of Montgomery had no choice but to lift its enforcement of segregation on public buses, and the boycott officially ended on December 20, 1956, after 381 days. The combination of legal action, backed by the unrelenting determination of the Black community, made the Montgomery Bus Boycott one of the largest and most successful mass movements against racial segregation in history.

Although she had become a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement , Parks suffered hardship in the months following her arrest in Montgomery and the subsequent boycott. She lost her department store job, and her husband was fired from his barber job at Maxwell Air Force Base after his boss forbade him to talk about his wife or their legal case. The couple began receiving constant death threats, and Raymond started sleeping with his gun for protection as a result, according to The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks .

Unable to find work, they eventually left Montgomery and moved to Detroit with Parks’ mother. There, Parks made a new life for herself, working as a secretary and receptionist in U.S. Representative John Conyer’s congressional office. She also served on the board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Parks remained involved in activism throughout her life, speaking out against housing discrimination and police abuse. She also befriended Malcolm X , considering him her “personal hero.”

In 1987, a decade after her husband’s death, Parks founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development with longtime friend Elaine Eason Steele. The organization runs “Pathways to Freedom” bus tours, introducing young people to important civil rights and Underground Railroad sites throughout the country.

In 1992, Parks published Rosa Parks: My Story , an autobiography recounting her life in the segregated South. In 1995, she published Quiet Strength , which focuses on the role that religious faith played throughout her life.

In 1998, the hip-hop group Outkast released a song, “Rosa Parks,” which peaked at No. 55 on the Billboard Hot 100 music chart the following year. The song featured the chorus: “Ah-ha, hush that fuss. Everybody move to the back of the bus.”

In 1999, Parks filed a lawsuit against the group and its label alleging defamation and false advertising because Outkast used Parks’ name without her permission. Outkast said the song was protected by the First Amendment and didn’t violate Parks’ publicity rights. In 2003, a judge dismissed the defamation claims. Parks’ lawyer soon refiled based on the false advertising claims for using her name without permission, seeking over $5 billion.

On April 14, 2005, the case was settled. Outkast and co-defendants SONY BMG Music Entertainment, Arista Records LLC, and LaFace Records admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to work with the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute to develop educational programs that “enlighten today’s youth about the significant role Rosa Parks played in making America a better place for all races,” according to a statement released at the time.

On October 24, 2005, Parks quietly died in her apartment in Detroit at the age of 92. She had been diagnosed the previous year with progressive dementia, which she had been suffering from since at least 2002.

Parks’ death was marked by several memorial services, among them, lying in honor at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, where an estimated 50,000 people viewed her casket.

Parks was the first woman and only the second Black person—after Jacob Joseph Chestnut, a U.S. Capitol police officer killed in 1998—to lie in the Capitol , which is considered the “most suitable place for the nation to pay final tribute to its most eminent citizens.” City officials in Montgomery and Detroit reserved the front seats of their buses with black ribbons in honor of Parks.

Parks was interred between her husband and mother at Detroit’s Woodlawn Cemetery, in the chapel’s mausoleum. Shortly after her death, the chapel was renamed the Rosa L. Parks Freedom Chapel. Speaking during her funeral, then–Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “I can honestly say that without Mrs. Parks, I probably would not be standing here today as secretary of state.”

Parks received many accolades during her lifetime, including the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP’s highest award, and the prestigious Martin Luther King Jr. Award. On September 15, 1996, President Bill Clinton awarded Parks the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given by the United States’ executive branch. The following year, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award given by the U.S. legislative branch. Time magazine named Parks on its 1999 list of “The 20 Most Influential People of the 20 th Century.”

In 2000, Troy University created the Rosa Parks Museum , located at the site of her arrest in downtown Montgomery, Alabama. In 2001, the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, consecrated Rosa Parks Circle, a 3.5-acre park designed by architect Maya Lin , who is best known for designing the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington.

A biographical movie starring Angela Bassett and directed by Julie Dash, The Rosa Parks Story , was released in 2002. The movie won the 2003 NAACP Image Award, Christopher Award, and Black Reel Award.

On February 4, 2013—which would have been Parks’ 100th birthday—a commemorative U.S. Postal Service stamp was released called the Rosa Parks Forever stamp, featuring a rendition of the famed activist.

Also in February 2013, President Barack Obama unveiled a statue, designed by Robert Firmin and sculpted by Eugene Daub, honoring Parks in the nation’s Capitol building. He remembered Parks by saying: “In a single moment, with the simplest of gestures, she helped change America and change the world,” Obama said during the dedication ceremony . “And today, she takes her rightful place among those who shaped this nation’s course.”

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• At the time I was arrested, I had no idea it would turn into this. It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in.
• I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.
• People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired... the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.
• Each person must live their life as a model for others.
• I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free... so other people would be also free.
• I’d see the bus pass every day... the bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black and white world.
• When I thought about Emmett Till, I could not go to the back of the bus.
• My only concern was to get home after a hard day’s work.
• The time had just come when I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed.
• I had decided that I would have to know once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen, even in Montgomery, Alabama.
• My resisting being mistreated on the bus did not begin with that particular arrest. I did a lot of walking in Montgomery.
• My desires were to be free as soon as I learned that there had been slavery of human beings.
• As I look back on those days, it’ s just like a dream, and the only thing that bothered me was that we waited so long to make this protest and to let it be known, wherever we go, that all of us should be free and equal and have all opportunities that others should have.
• God has always given me the strength to say what is right.
• There were times when it would have been easy to fall apart or to go in the opposite direction, but somehow, I felt that if I took one more step, someone would come along to join me.
• When I made that decision [to refuse to surrender my seat] , I knew I had the strength of my ancestors behind me.
• I am always very respectful and very much in awe of the presence of Septima Clark , because her life story makes the effort that I have made very minute. I only hope that there is a possible chance that some of her great courage and dignity and wisdom has rubbed off on me.

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By: History.com Editors

Updated: February 20, 2024 | Original: November 9, 2009

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 inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott . Led by a young Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. , the boycott lasted more than a year—during which Parks not coincidentally lost her job—and ended only when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional. Over the next half-century, Parks became a nationally recognized symbol of dignity and strength in the struggle to end entrenched racial segregation .

Rosa Parks’ Early Life

Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama , on February 4, 1913. She moved with her parents, James and Leona McCauley, to Pine Level, Alabama, at age 2 to reside with Leona’s parents. Her brother, Sylvester, was born in 1915, and shortly after that her parents separated.

Did you know? When Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in 1955, it wasn’t the first time she’d clashed with driver James Blake. Parks stepped onto his very crowded bus on a chilly day 12 years earlier, paid her fare at the front, then resisted the rule in place for Black people to disembark and re-enter through the back door. She stood her ground until Blake pulled her coat sleeve, enraged, to demand her cooperation. Parks left the bus rather than give in.

Rosa’s mother was a teacher, and the family valued education. Rosa moved to Montgomery, Alabama, at age 11 and eventually attended high school there, a laboratory school at the Alabama State Teachers’ College for Negroes. She left at 16, early in 11th grade, because she needed to care for her dying grandmother and, shortly thereafter, her chronically ill mother. In 1932, at 19, she married Raymond Parks, a self-educated man 10 years her senior who worked as a barber and was a long-time member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ). He supported Rosa in her efforts to earn her high-school diploma, which she ultimately did the following year.

Rosa Parks: Roots of Activism

Raymond and Rosa, who worked as a seamstress, became respected members of Montgomery’s large African American community. Co-existing with white people in a city governed by “ Jim Crow ” (segregation) laws, however, was fraught with daily frustrations: Black people could attend only certain (inferior) schools, could drink only from specified water fountains and could borrow books only from the “Black” library, among other restrictions.

Although Raymond had previously discouraged her out of fear for her safety, in December 1943, Rosa also joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and became chapter secretary . She worked closely with chapter president Edgar Daniel (E.D.) Nixon. Nixon was a railroad porter known in the city as an advocate for Black people who wanted to register to vote, and also as president of the local branch of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union .

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 residents of Montgomery often avoided municipal buses if possible because they found the Negroes-in-back policy so demeaning. Nonetheless, 70 percent or more riders on a typical day were Black, and on this day Rosa Parks was one of them.

Segregation was written into law; the front of a Montgomery bus was reserved for white citizens, and the seats behind them for Black citizens. However, it was only by custom that bus drivers had the authority to ask a Black person to give up a seat for a white rider. There were contradictory Montgomery laws on the books: One said segregation must be enforced, but another, largely ignored, said no person (white or Black) could be asked to give up a seat even if there were no other seat on the bus available.

Nonetheless, at one point on the route, a white man had no seat because all the seats in the designated “white” section were taken. So the driver told the riders in the four seats of the first row of the “colored” section to stand, in effect adding another row to the “white” section. The three others obeyed. Parks did not.

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired,” wrote Parks in her autobiography, “but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically… No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Eventually, two police officers approached the stopped bus, assessed the situation and placed Parks in custody.

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Although Parks used her one phone call to contact her husband, word of her arrest had spread quickly and E.D. Nixon was there when Parks was released on bail later that evening. Nixon had hoped for years to find a courageous Black person of unquestioned honesty and integrity to become the plaintiff in a case that might become the test of the validity of segregation laws. Sitting in Parks’ home, Nixon convinced Parks—and her husband and mother—that Parks was that plaintiff. Another idea arose as well: The Black population of Montgomery would boycott the buses on the day of Parks’ trial, Monday, December 5. By midnight, 35,000 flyers were being mimeographed to be sent home with Black schoolchildren, informing their parents of the planned boycott.

On December 5, Parks was found guilty of violating segregation laws, given a suspended sentence and fined $10 plus $4 in court costs. Meanwhile, Black participation in the boycott was much larger than even optimists in the community had anticipated. Nixon and some ministers decided to take advantage of the momentum, forming the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to manage the boycott, and they elected Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.–new to Montgomery and just 26 years old—as the MIA’s president.

As appeals and related lawsuits wended their way through the courts, all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court , the Montgomery Bus Boycott engendered anger in much of Montgomery’s white population as well as some violence, and Nixon’s and Dr. King’s homes were bombed . The violence didn’t deter the boycotters or their leaders, however, and the drama in Montgomery continued to gain attention from the national and international press.

On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional; the boycott ended December 20, a day after the Court’s written order arrived in Montgomery. Parks—who had lost her job and experienced harassment all year—became known as “the mother of the civil rights movement.”

Rosa Parks's Life After the Boycott

Facing continued harassment and threats in the wake of the boycott, Parks, along with her husband and mother, eventually decided to move to Detroit, where Parks’ brother resided. Parks became an administrative aide in the Detroit office of Congressman John Conyers Jr. in 1965, a post she held until her 1988 retirement. Her husband, brother and mother all died of cancer between 1977 and 1979. In 1987, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, to serve Detroit’s youth.

In the years following her retirement, she traveled to lend her support to civil-rights events and causes and wrote an autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story . In 1999, Parks was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor the United States bestows on a civilian. (Other recipients have included George Washington , Thomas Edison , Betty Ford and Mother Teresa.) When she died at age 92 on October 24, 2005, she became the first woman in the nation’s history to lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol.

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On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of going to the back of the bus, which was designated for African Americans, she sat in the front. When the bus started to fill up with white passengers, the bus driver asked Parks to move. She refused. Her resistance set in motion one of the largest social movements in history, the Montgomery Bus Boycott .

Rosa Louise McCauley was born on February 4th, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. As a child, she went to an industrial school for girls and later enrolled at Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes (present-day Alabama State University). Unfortunately, Parks was forced to withdraw after her grandmother became ill. Growing up in the segregated South, Parks was frequently confronted with racial discrimination and violence. She became active in the Civil Rights Movement at a young age.

Parks married a local barber by the name of Raymond Parks when she was 19. He was actively fighting to end racial injustice. Together the couple worked with many social justice organizations. Eventually, Rosa was elected secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). 

By the time Parks boarded the bus in 1955, she was an established organizer and leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. Parks not only showed active resistance by refusing to move she also helped organize and plan the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Many have tried to diminish Parks’ role in the boycott by depicting her as a seamstress who simply did not want to move because she was tired. Parks denied the claim and years later revealed her true motivation:

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Parks courageous act and the subsequent Montgomery Bus Boycott led to the integration of public transportation in Montgomery. Her actions were not without consequence. She was jailed for refusing to give up her seat and lost her job for participating in the boycott.

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. By 1980, after consistently giving to the movement both financially and physically Parks, now widowed, suffered from financial and health troubles. After almost being evicted from her home, local community members and churches came together to support Parks. On October 24th, 2005, at the age of 92, she died of natural causes leaving behind a rich legacy of resistance against racial discrimination and injustice.

• Parks, Rosa. Rosa Parks: My Story. New York: Puffin Books, 1999.
• Theoharis, Jeanne. The Rebellious Life of Mrs.Rosa Parks. New York: Beacon Press, 2014.
• “An Act of Courage, The Arrest Records of Rosa Parks” National Archives, Accessed 23 March 2017. https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/rosa-parks
• PHOTO: Library of Congress

MLA – Norwood, Arlisha. "Rosa Parks." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2017. Date accessed.

Chicago- Norwood, Arlisha. "Rosa Parks." National Women's History Museum. 2017. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/rosa-parks.

• Robinson, Jo Ann. Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robison. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987.
• “Rosa Parks: How I Fought for Civil Rights.” Scholastic Teacher’s Activity Guide. Accessed 23 March 2017.
• “What If: I Don’t Move to the Back of The Bus?” The Henry Ford Foundation : Stories of Innovation, Accessed March 23 2017.

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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. Her quiet courageous act changed America, its view of black people and redirected the course of history.

Mrs. Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley, February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. She was the first child of James and Leona Edwards McCauley. Her brother, Sylvester McCauley, now deceased, was born August 20, 1915. Later, the family moved to Pine Level, Alabama where Rosa was reared and educated in the rural school. When she completed her education in Pine Level at age eleven, her mother, Leona, enrolled her in Montgomery Industrial School for Girls (Miss White’s School for Girls), a private institution. After finishing Miss White’s School, she went on to Alabama State Teacher’s College High School. She, however, was unable to graduate with her class, because of the illness of her grandmother Rose Edwards and later her death.

As Rosa Parks prepared to return to Alabama State Teacher’s College, her mother also became ill, therefore, she continued to take care of their home and care for her mother while her brother, Sylvester, worked outside of the home. She received her high school diploma in 1934, after her marriage to Raymond Parks, December 18, 1932. Raymond, now deceased was born in Wedowee, Alabama, Randolph County, February 12, 1903, received little formal education due to racial segregation. He was a self-educated person with the assistance of his mother, Geri Parks. His immaculate dress and his thorough knowledge of domestic affairs and current events made most think he was college educated. He supported and encouraged Rosa’s desire to complete her formal education.

Mr. Parks was an early activist in the effort to free the “Scottsboro Boys,” a celebrated case in the 1930′s. Together, Raymond and Rosa worked in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP’s) programs. He was an active member and she served as secretary and later youth leader of the local branch. At the time of her arrest, she was preparing for a major youth conference.

After the arrest of Rosa Parks, black people of Montgomery and sympathizers of other races organized and promoted a boycott of the city bus line that lasted 381 days. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was appointed the spokesperson for the Bus Boycott and taught nonviolence to all participants. Contingent with the protest in Montgomery, others took shape throughout the south and the country. They took form as sit-ins, eat-ins, swim-ins, and similar causes. Thousands of courageous people joined the “protest” to demand equal rights for all people.

Mrs. Parks moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1957. In 1964 she became a deaconess in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME).

Congressman John Conyers First Congressional District of Michigan employed Mrs. Parks, from 1965 to 1988. In February, 1987, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development with Ms. Elaine Eason Steele in honor of her husband, Raymond (1903-1977). The purpose is to motivate and direct youth not targeted by other programs to achieve their highest potential. Rosa Parks sees the energy of young people as a real force for change. It is among her most treasured themes of human priorities as she speaks to young people of all ages at schools, colleges, and national organizations around the world.

The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development’s “Pathways to Freedom program, traces the underground railroad into the civil rights movement and beyond. Youth, ages 11 through 17, meet and talk with Mrs. Parks and other national leaders as they participate in educational and historical research throughout the world. They journey primarily by bus as “freedom riders” did in the 1960′s,the theme: “Where have we been? Where are we going?”

As a role model for youth she was stimulated by their enthusiasm to learn as much about her life as possible. A modest person, she always encourages them to research the lives of other contributors to world peace. The Institute and The Rosa Parks Legacy are her legacies to people of good will.

Mrs. Parks received more than forty-three honorary doctorate degrees, including one from SOKA UNIVERSITY, Tokyo Japan, hundreds of plaques, certificates, citations, awards and keys to many cities. Among them are the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal, the UAW’s Social Justice Award, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Non – Violent Peace Prize and the ROSA PARKS PEACE PRIZE in 1994, Stockholm Sweden, to name a few. In September 1996 President William J. Clinton, the forty second President of the United States of America gave Mrs. Parks the MEDAL OF FREEDOM, the highest award given to a civilian citizen.

Published Act no.28 of 1997 designated the first Monday following February 4, as Mrs Rosa Parks’ Day in the state of Michigan, her home state. She is the first living person to be honored with a holiday.

She was voted by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most Influential people of the 20th century. A Museum and Library is being built in her honor, in Montgomery, AL and will open in the fall of the year 2000 (ground breaking April 21, 1998). On September 2, 1998 The Rosa L. Parks Learning Center was dedicated at Botsford Commons, a senior community in Michigan. Through the use of computer technology, youth will mentor seniors on the use of computers. (Mrs. Parks was a member of the first graduating class on November 24, 1998). On September 26, 1998 Mrs. Parks was the recipient of the first International Freedom Conductor’s Award by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

She attended her first “State of the Union Address” in January 1999. Mrs. Parks received a unanimous bipartisan standing ovation when President William Jefferson Clinton acknowledged her. Representative Julia Carson of Indianapolis, Indiana introduced H. R. Bill 573 on February 4, 1999, which would award Mrs. Rosa Parks the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor if it passed the House of Representatives and the Senate by a majority. The bill was passed unanimously in the Senate on April 19, and with one descenting vote in the House of Representatives on April 20. President Clinton signed it into law on May 3, 1999. Mrs. Parks was one of only 250 individuals at the time, including the American Red Cross to receive this honor. President George Washington was the first to receive the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor. President Nelson Mandela is also listed among the select few of world leaders who have received the medal.

In the winter of 2000 Mrs. Parks met Pope John-Paul II in St. Louis, MO and read a statement to him asking for racial healing. She received the NAACP Image Award for Best Supporting Actress in the Television series, TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, “Black like Monica”. Troy State University at Montgomery opened The Rosa Parks Library and Museum on the site where Mrs. Parks was arrested December 1, 1955. It opened on the 45th Anniversary of her arrest and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

“The Rosa Parks Story” was filmed in Montgomery, Alabama May 2001, an aired February 24, 2002 on the CBS television network. Mrs. Parks continues to receive numerous awards including the very first Lifetime Achievement Award ever given by The Institute for Research on Women & Gender, Stanford University. She received the Gandhi, King, Ikeda award for peace and on October 29, 2003 Mrs. Parks was an International Institute Heritage Hall of fame honoree. On February 4, 2004 Mrs. Parks 91st birthday was celebrated at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. On December 21, 2004 the 49th Anniversary of the Mrs. Parks’ arrest was commemorated with a Civil Rights and Hip-Hop Forum at the Franklin Settlement in Detroit, Michigan.

On February 4, 2005 Mrs. Parks’ 92nd birthday was celebrate at Calvary Baptist Church in Detroit, MI. Students from the Detroit Public Schools did “Willing to be Arrested,” a reenactment of Mrs. Parks arrest. February 6, 2005 Mrs. Parks received the first annual Cardinal Dearden Peace Award at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Detroit, MI. February 19 – 20, composer Hannibal Lokumbe premiered an original symphony “Dear Mrs. Parks.” Mr. Lokumbe did this original work as part of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s ” Classical Roots Series.” The beginning of many events that will commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Mrs. Parks’ arrest December 1, 1955.

Mrs. Parks has written four books, Rosa Parks: My Story: by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins, Quiet Strength by Rosa Parks with Gregory J. Reed, Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue With Today’s Youth by Rosa Parks with Gregory J, Reed, this book received the NAACP’s Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, (Children’s) in 1996 and her latest book, I AM ROSA PARKS by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins, for preschoolers.

A quiet exemplification of courage, dignity, and determination; Rosa Parks was a symbol to all to remain free. Rosa Parks made her peaceful transition October 24, 2005.

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Two policemen came on the bus, and one asked me if the driver had told me to stand. He wanted to know why I didn’t stand, and I told him I didn’t think I should have to stand up. I asked him, why did they push us around? He said, I don’t know, but the law is the law and you are under arrest.

Most historians date the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the United States to December 1, 1955. That was the day when an unknown seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. This brave woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested and fined for violating a city ordinance, but her lonely act of defiance began a movement that ended legal segregation in America, and made her an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere.

Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama to James McCauley, a carpenter, and Leona McCauley, a teacher. At the age of two she moved to her grandparents’ farm in Pine Level, Alabama with her mother and younger brother, Sylvester. At the age of 11 she enrolled in the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private school founded by liberal-minded women from the northern United States.

The school’s philosophy of self-worth was consistent with Leona McCauley’s advice to “take advantage of the opportunities, no matter how few they were.” Opportunities were few indeed. “Back then,” Mrs. Parks recalled in an interview, “we didn’t have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next. I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down.” In the same interview, she cited her lifelong acquaintance with fear as the reason for her relative fearlessness in deciding to appeal her conviction during the bus boycott. “I didn’t have any special fear,” she said. “It was more of a relief to know that I wasn’t alone.” After attending Alabama State Teachers College, the young Rosa settled in Montgomery, with her husband, Raymond Parks. The couple joined the local chapter of the NAACP and worked quietly for many years to improve the lot of African Americans in the segregated South. 

“I worked on numerous cases with the NAACP,” Mrs. Parks recalled, “but we did not get the publicity. There were cases of flogging, peonage, murder, and rape. We didn’t seem to have too many successes. It was more a matter of trying to challenge the powers that be, and to let it be known that we did not wish to continue being second-class citizens.”

The bus incident led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by the young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The association called for a boycott of the city-owned bus company. The boycott lasted 381 days and brought Mrs. Parks, Dr. King, and their cause to the attention of the world. A Supreme Court decision struck down the Montgomery ordinance under which Mrs. Parks had been fined, and outlawed racial segregation on public transportation.

In 1957, Mrs. Parks and her husband moved to Detroit, Michigan, where Mrs. Parks served on the staff of U.S. Representative John Conyers. The Southern Christian Leadership Council established an annual Rosa Parks Freedom Award in her honor.

After the death of her husband in 1977, Mrs. Parks founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. The Institute sponsors an annual summer program for teenagers called Pathways to Freedom. The young people tour the country in buses, under adult supervision, learning the history of their country and of the civil rights movement. President Clinton presented Rosa Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. She received a Congressional Gold Medal in 1999.

When asked if she was happy living in retirement, Rosa Parks replied, “I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I don’t think there is any such thing as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say you’re happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I haven’t reached that stage yet.”

Mrs. Parks spent her last years living quietly in Detroit, where she died in 2005 at the age of 92. After her death, her casket was placed in the rotunda of the United States Capitol for two days, so the nation could pay its respects to the woman whose courage had changed the lives of so many. She was the first woman and the second African American to lie in honor at the Capitol, a distinction usually reserved for Presidents of the United States.

View and listen to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered on the steps of Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963.

Member of the American Academy of Achievement, poet and best-selling author, Maya Angelou  shares her interpretation of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

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 bus system by blacks that lasted more than a year. The boycott raised an unknown clergyman named Martin Luther King, Jr., to national prominence and resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation on city buses. Over the next four decades, she helped make her fellow Americans aware of the history of the civil rights struggle. This pioneer in the struggle for racial equality was the recipient of innumerable honors, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her example remains an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere.

In 1955, you refused to give up your seat to a white passenger on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Your act inspired the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the event historians call the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement. Could you tell us exactly what happened that day?

Rosa Parks: I was arrested on December 1, 1955 for refusing to stand up on the orders of the bus driver, after the white seats had been occupied in the front. And of course, I was not in the front of the bus as many people have written and spoken that I was — that I got on the bus and took the front seat, but I did not. I took a seat that was just back of where the white people were sitting, in fact, the last seat. A man was next to the window, and I took an aisle seat and there were two women across. We went on undisturbed until about the second or third stop when some white people boarded the bus and left one man standing. And when the driver noticed him standing, he told us to stand up and let him have those seats. He referred to them as front seats. And when the other three people — after some hesitancy — stood up, he wanted to know if I was going to stand up, and I told him I was not. And he told me he would have me arrested. And I told him he may do that. And of course, he did.   Two policemen came on the bus and one asked me if the driver had told me to stand and I said, “Yes.” And he wanted to know why I didn’t stand, and I told him I didn’t think I should have to stand up. And then I asked him, why did they push us around? And he said, and I quote him, “I don’t know, but the law is the law and you are under arrest.”  And with that, I got off the bus, under arrest.

Did they take you down to the police station?

Rosa Parks: Yes. A policeman wanted the driver to swear out a warrant, if he was willing, and he told him that he would sign a warrant when he finished his trip and delivered his passengers, and he would come straight down to the City Hall to sign a warrant against me.

Did he do that?

Rosa Parks: Yes, he did.

Did the public response begin immediately?

Rosa Parks: Actually, it began as soon as it was announced.

It was put in the paper that I had been arrested. Mr. E.D. Nixon was the legal redress chairman of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP, and he made a number of calls during the night, called a number of ministers. I was arrested on a Thursday evening, and on Friday evening is when they had the meeting at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King was the pastor. A number of citizens came, and I told them the story and from then on, it became news about my being arrested. My trial was December 5, when they found me guilty. The lawyers Fred Gray and Charles Langford, who represented me, filed an appeal and, of course, I didn’t pay any fine. We set a meeting at the Holt Street Baptist Church on the evening of December 5th, because December 5th was the day the people stayed off in large numbers and did not ride the bus.   In fact, most of the buses, I think all of them were just about empty with the exception of maybe very, very few people.   When they found out that one day’s protest had kept people off the bus, it came to a vote and unanimously, it was decided that they would not ride the buses anymore until changes for the better were made.

When you refused to stand up, did you have a sense of anger at having to do it?

Rosa Parks: I don’t remember feeling that anger, but I did feel determined to take this as an opportunity to let it be known that I did not want to be treated in that manner and that people have endured it far too long. However, I did not have at the moment of my arrest any idea of how the people would react. And since they reacted favorably, I was willing to go with that. We formed what was known as the Montgomery Improvement Association, on the afternoon of December 5th. Dr. Martin Luther King became very prominent in this movement, so he was chosen as a spokesman and the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association.

What are your thoughts when you look back on that time in your life. Any regrets?

As I look back on those days, it’s just like a dream. The only thing that bothered me was that we waited so long to make this protest and to let it be known wherever we go that all of us should be free and equal and have all opportunities that others should have.

What personal characteristics do you think are most important to accomplish something?

Rosa Parks: I think it’s important to believe in yourself and when you feel like you have the right idea, to stay with it. And of course, it all depends upon the cooperation of the people around. People were very cooperative in getting off the buses. And from that, of course, we went on to other things. I, along with Mrs. Field, who was here with me, organized the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. Raymond, my husband—he is now deceased—was another person who inspired me, because he believed in freedom and equality himself.

You were married during the bus incident.

Rosa Parks: Yes, I was.

How old were you?

Rosa Parks: When I was arrested, I was 42 years old. There were so many needs for us to continue to work for freedom, because I didn’t think that we should have to be treated in the way we were, just for the sake of white supremacy, because it was designed to make them feel superior, and us feel inferior. That was the whole plan of racially enforced segregation.

What was it like in Montgomery when you were growing up?

Rosa Parks: Back in Montgomery during my growing up there, it was completely legally enforced racial segregation, and of course, I struggled against it for a long time.   I felt that it was not right to be deprived of freedom when we were living in the Home of the Brave and Land of the Free.   Of course, when I refused to stand up, on the orders of the bus driver, for a white passenger to take the seat, and I was not sitting in the front of the bus, as so many people have said, and neither was my feet hurting, as many people have said. But I made up my mind that I would not give in any longer to legally-imposed racial segregation and of course my arrest brought about the protests for more than a year.   And in doing so, Dr. Martin Luther King became prominent because he was the leader of our protests along with many other people.   And I’m very glad that this experience I had then brought about a movement that triggered across the United States and in other places.

• 26 photos

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.

Her defiance sparked a successful boycott of buses in Montgomery a few days later. Residents refused to board the city's buses. Instead they carpooled, rode in Black-owned cabs, or walked, some as far as 20 miles. The boycott dealt a severe blow to the bus company's profits as dozens of public buses stood idle for months. The boycott was led by a newcomer to Montgomery named Martin Luther King, Jr.

Intentional Act

At the time, Parks led the youth division at the Montgomery branch of NAACP. She said her anger over the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till and the failure to bring his killers to justice inspired her to make her historic stand. Four days before the incident, Parks attended a meeting where she learned of the acquittal of Till's murderers.

In her autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story (1992), Parks declares her defiance was an intentional act: "I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was 42. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

As a result of her defiance, Parks was arrested and found guilty of disorderly conduct. NAACP joined her appeal, a case that languished in the Alabama court system. Segregation on public buses eventually ended in 1956 after a Supreme Court ruling declared it unconstitutional in Browder v. Gayle . Parks was not included as a plaintiff in the decision since her case was still pending in the state court.

"I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was 42. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in." — Rosa Parks

Joining the Fight in Detroit

In addition to her arrest, Parks lost her job as a seamstress at a local department store. Her husband Raymond lost his job as a barber at a local air force base after his boss forbade him to talk about the legal case. Parks and her husband left Montgomery in 1957 to find work, first traveling to Virginia and later to Detroit, Michigan.

Parks supported the militant Black power movement, whose leaders disagreed with the methods of the nonviolent movement represented by Martin Luther King. Her break with other Montgomery leaders over the future of the civil rights struggle contributed to her departure from the Southern city.

Parks was struck by the similarity in treatment of African Americans in Detroit, finding that schools and housing were just as segregated as they were in the South. She joined the movement for fair housing and lent her support to local candidate John Conyers in his bid for Congress.

After he was elected in 1965, Conyers repaid the favor by employing Parks as his secretary in his Detroit office, a position she held until her retirement in 1988. In the role, Parks worked with constituents on issues such as job discrimination, education, and affordable housing.

Parks remained active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and helped investigate the killing of three Black teenagers in a 1967 race riot in Detroit.

Death and legacy

Over the course of her life, Parks received many honors, including NAACP's Springarn Medal in 1979, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999. After Parks died in Detroit in 2005 at the age of 92, she became the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C.

California, Missouri, Ohio, and Oregon commemorate Rosa Parks Day every year, and highways in Missouri, Michigan, and Pennsylvania bear her name.

Meet other heroes who advanced racial justice

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Educator Resources

An Act of Courage, The Arrest Records of Rosa Parks

On December 1, 1955, during a typical evening rush hour in Montgomery, Alabama, a 42-year-old woman took a seat on the bus on her way home from the Montgomery Fair department store where she worked as a seamstress. Before she reached her destination, she quietly set off a social revolution when the bus driver instructed her to move back, and she refused. Rosa Parks, an African American, was arrested that day for violating a city law requiring racial segregation of public buses.

On the city buses of Montgomery, Alabama, the front 10 seats were permanently reserved for white passengers. The diagram shows that Mrs. Parks was seated in the first row behind those 10 seats. When the bus became crowded, the bus driver instructed Mrs. Parks and the other three passengers seated in that row, all African Americans, to vacate their seats for the white passengers boarding. Eventually, three of the passengers moved, while Mrs. Parks remained seated, arguing that she was not in a seat reserved for whites. James Blake, the driver, believed he had the discretion to move the line separating black and white passengers. The law was actually somewhat murky on that point, but when Mrs. Parks defied his order, he called the police. Officers Day and Mixon came and promptly arrested her.

In police custody, Mrs. Parks was booked, fingerprinted, and briefly incarcerated. The police report shows that she was charged with "refusing to obey orders of bus driver." For openly challenging the racial laws of her city, she remained at great physical risk while held by the police, and her family was terrified for her. When she called home, she spoke to her mother, whose first question was "Did they beat you?"

Mrs. Parks was not the first person to be prosecuted for violating the segregation laws on the city buses in Montgomery. She was, however, a woman of unchallenged character who was held in high esteem by all those who knew her. At the time of her arrest, Mrs. Parks was active in the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), serving as secretary to E.D. Nixon, president of the Montgomery chapter. Her arrest became a rallying point around which the African American community organized a bus boycott in protest of the discrimination they had endured for years. Martin Luther King, Jr., the 26-year-old minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, emerged as a leader during the well-coordinated, peaceful boycott that lasted 381 days and captured the world's attention. It was during the boycott that Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., first achieved national fame as the public became acquainted with his powerful oratory.

After Mrs. Parks was convicted under city law, her lawyer filed a notice of appeal. While her appeal was tied up in the state court of appeals, a panel of three judges in the U.S. District Court for the region ruled in another case that racial segregation of public buses was unconstitutional. That case, called Browder v. Gayle , was decided on June 4, 1956. The ruling was made by a three-judge panel that included Frank M. Johnson, Jr., and upheld by the United States Supreme court on November 13, 1956.

For a quiet act of defiance that resonated throughout the world, Rosa Parks is known and revered as the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement."

The documents shown here relating to Mrs. Parks's arrest are copies that were submitted as evidence in the Browder v. Gayle case. They are preserved by the National Archives at Atlanta in Morrow, Georgia, in Record Group 21, Records District Courts of the United States, U.S. District Court for Middle District of Alabama, Northern (Montgomery) Division. Civil Case 1147, Browder, et al v. Gayle, et al .

Suggested Reading

Bass, Jack. Taming the Storm?The Life and Times of Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. and the South's Fight over Civil Rights . NY: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1993.

Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 . NY: Simon & Schuster, 1988.

Parks, Rosa. Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue with Today's Youth .

Parks, Rosa and Jim Haskins (contributor). Rosa Parks: My Story .

Stevenson, Janet. "Rosa Parks Wouldn't Budge." American Heritage , Vol. XXIII, No. 2, February 1972.

Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 . New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1987.

The Documents

Article Citation

Bredhoff, Stacey, Wynell Schamel, and Lee Ann Potter. "The Arrest Records of Rosa Parks." Social Education 63, 4 (May/June 1999): 207-211.

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The Rosa Parks Bus

A Tangible Way to Preserve Civil Rights History

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By: Elizabeth Byrd Wood

It’s a story of midnight bids and destroyed documents. It’s a story of meticulous research and tough questions with no clear answers. It’s a story of awe and hope. It’s the story of the Rosa Parks bus—bus number 2857.

The story of how the bus got from a factory in Pontiac, Michigan, to the streets of Montgomery, Alabama, to a mechanic’s field outside of Montgomery, and finally to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, has some surprising twists and turns. If you aren’t familiar with it, stop reading now and go to the excellent article in American Heritage magazine by William S. Pretzer, who was the curator at the Henry Ford Museum responsible for the research, acquisition, restoration, and interpretation of the Rosa Parks bus between 2001 and 2006. Then click back here, because there’s more.

Forum staff interviewed Pretzer and his colleague Malcolm Collum, who was the senior conservator at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in 2001 when the bus came up for auction. The conservators' task was daunting. They had to determine if the bus, which had been rusting in an Alabama field for 30 years and was now for sale, was truly bus 2857. They had to figure out how to restore, display, and interpret the bus. They had to answer to critics who felt the bus should be exhibited in a civil rights museum in Alabama.

They persevered, and today the bus has been restored and is part of “With Liberty and Justice for All,” an exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village that explores America’s fight for freedom, from the Revolutionary War through the struggle for civil rights.

photo by: Jason-Tester-Guerrilla-Futures/flickr/CC BY NC 2.0

Visitors can enter the bus in the exhibit, which often evokes emotional responses.

Collum explains that it was a challenge for him to come to “the realization that this artifact was going to be ‘used and experienced,’ because with that comes wear and tear.” He says: “We needed to find replacement seats, we replaced the rubberized flooring and needed to repaint most surfaces, so these components were considered expendable, and we just needed to repair and replace as needed.”

But this overhaul actually turned out to be a good thing. Today, visitors to the Henry Ford museum can actually board the bus and sit in the seats—it is not simply an exhibit behind glass. Collum says, “It would have been much more of a challenge if the bus was primarily original, since we would have preferred to keep all the materials preserved and this would have forced us to prohibit visitors from getting inside.”

As museum administrators today strive to make artifacts and spaces more accessible, they have to account for everyday wear and tear, and even vandalism. But the rewards of “opening up” history are immense. Collum says: “I’m still struck by the emotional response that people had when they were able to go inside and sit in the same place where Parks was back in 1955. Perfectly composed people just broke down into tears once they sat down and reflected on the event.”

He explains: “Usually we never allow visitors to enter the vehicles in the museum but we decided that going into the bus was going to be essential if we want people to be able to have such a strong emotional response to this artifact.”

“There are no good reasons not to interpret ‘difficult’ or unpleasant aspects of history. Indeed, it is often in those moments that we see the best and learn the most.” William S. Pretzer

Bus 2857 is a bus—a 1950s version of the standard metro bus that many Americans ride every day. But the history and emotions that surround this ordinary bus are powerful, personal, controversial, painful, and still close to the surface.

Pretzer, who is now senior history curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture , says that “if you explore why these sites evoke such strong emotions, then you can find methods of presentation that acknowledge complexity and differences of perspective, but also illuminate the interests at stake and the motives that drive human action.”

He explains that you need to “analyze the issues not as who won and who lost, but what values or principles were at stake and whether or not the outcome promotes human dignity or not."

"There are no good reasons not to interpret ‘difficult’ or unpleasant aspects of history," Pretzer says. "Indeed, it is often in those moments that we see the best and learn the most.”

photo by: Ted-Eytan/flickr/CC BY NC 2.0

Rosa Parks getting arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat.

Collum reflects on the “what ifs” of the story. What if the bus had ended up in the scrap yard? Collum says: “If lost, it would mean thousands, if not millions, of people would never be able to have that emotional connection with history. There’s nothing that comes close to the experience people get when they are literally immersed in an artifact. It’s a tangible and real experience that only happens when we can make that physical connection.”

The remarkable story of how this bus was saved is a reminder of the fragility of our material culture. Pretzer says: “[An] interesting question is how many other powerful, but less known stories of courage and defiance in the quest for freedom and equality are destroyed or left to decay. Those stories are too often lost because there is little documentation other than the material remains and oral history.”

This article originally appeared in the Preservation Leadership Forum Blog. It has been edited for length and clarity.

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Biography Online

Rosa Parks Biography

Parks is famous for her refusal on 1 December 1955, to obey bus driver James Blake’s demand that she relinquish her seat to a white man. Her subsequent arrest and trial for this act of civil disobedience triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the largest and most successful mass movements against racial segregation in history, and launched Martin Luther King, Jr ., one of the organisers of the boycott, to the forefront of the civil rights movement. Her role in American history earned her an iconic status in American culture, and her actions have left an enduring legacy for civil rights movements around the world.

Early life Rosa Parks

Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913. Her ancestors included both Irish-Scottish lineage and also a great grandmother who was a slave. She attended local rural schools, and after the age of 11, the Industrial School for Girls in Montgomery. However, she later had to opt out of school to look after her grandmother.

As a child, Rosa became aware of the segregation which was deeply embedded in Alabama. She experienced deep-rooted racism and became conscious of the different opportunities faced by white and black children. She also recalls seeing a Klu Klux Klan march go past her house – where her father stood outside with a shotgun. Due to the Jim Crow laws, most black voters were effectively disenfranchised.

In 1932, she married Raymond Parks, a barber from Montgomery. He was active in the NAACP, and Rosa Parks became a supporter – helping with fund-raising and other initiatives. She attended meetings defending the rights of black people and seeking to prevent injustice.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

After a day at work at Montgomery Fair department store, Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus at around 6 p.m., Thursday, 1 December 1955, in downtown Montgomery. She paid her fare and sat in an empty seat in the first row of back seats reserved for blacks in the “colored” section, which was near the middle of the bus and directly behind the ten seats reserved for white passengers. Initially, she had not noticed that the bus driver was the same man, James F. Blake, who had left her in the rain in 1943. As the bus travelled along its regular route, all of the white-only seats in the bus filled up. The bus reached the third stop in front of the Empire Theater, and several white passengers boarded.

Following standard practice, the bus driver Blake noted that the front of the bus was filled with white passengers and there were two or three men standing. Therefore, he moved the “colored” section sign behind Parks and demanded that four black people give up their seats in the middle section so that the white passengers could sit. Years later, in recalling the events of the day, Parks said,

“When that white driver stepped back toward us, when he waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats, I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night.”

“When he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up, and I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ And he said, ‘Well, if you don’t stand up, I’m going to have to call the police and have you arrested.’ I said, ‘You may do that.'”

During a 1956 radio interview with Sydney Rogers in West Oakland, Parks was asked why she decided not to vacate her bus seat. Parks said, “I would have to know for once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen of Montgomery, Alabama.”

She also detailed her motivation in her autobiography, My Story:

“ People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in. ”

When Parks refused to give up her seat, a police officer arrested her. As the officer took her away, she recalled that she asked, “Why do you push us around?” The officer’s response as she remembered it was, “I don’t know, but the law’s the law, and you’re under arrest.” She later said, “I only knew that, as I was being arrested, that it was the very last time that I would ever ride in humiliation of this kind.”

Parks was charged with a violation of Chapter 6, Section 11 segregation law of the Montgomery City code, even though she technically had not taken up a white-only seat — she had been in a colored section. E.D. Nixon and Clifford Durr bailed Parks out of jail the evening of December 1.

That evening, Nixon conferred with Alabama State College professor Jo Ann Robinson about Parks’ case. Robinson, a member of the Women’s Political Council (WPC), stayed up all night mimeographing over 35,000 handbills announcing a bus boycott. The Women’s Political Council was the first group to officially endorse the boycott.

On Sunday 4th December 1955, plans for the Montgomery Bus Boycott were announced at black churches in the area, and a front-page article in The Montgomery Advertiser helped spread the word. At a church rally that night, attendees unanimously agreed to continue the boycott until they were treated with the level of courtesy they expected, until black drivers were hired, and until seating in the middle of the bus was handled on a first-come basis.

Four days later, Parks was tried on charges of disorderly conduct and violating a local ordinance. The trial lasted 30 minutes. Parks was found guilty and fined $10, plus $4 in court costs. Parks appealed her conviction and formally challenged the legality of racial segregation. In a 1992 interview with National Public Radio’s Lynn Neary, Parks recalled:

“I did not want to be mistreated, I did not want to be deprived of a seat that I had paid for. It was just time… there was opportunity for me to take a stand to express the way I felt about being treated in that manner. I had not planned to get arrested. I had plenty to do without having to end up in jail. But when I had to face that decision, I didn’t hesitate to do so because I felt that we had endured that too long. The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became. ”

On Monday 5 December 1955, after the success of the one-day boycott, a group of 16 to 18 people gathered at the Mt. Zion AME Zion Church to discuss boycott strategies. The group agreed that a new organisation was needed to lead the boycott effort if it were to continue. Rev. Ralph David Abernathy suggested the name “Montgomery Improvement Association” (MIA). The name was adopted, and the MIA was formed. Its members elected as their president, a relative newcomer to Montgomery, a young and mostly unknown minister of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.

That Monday night, 50 leaders of the African American community gathered to discuss the proper actions to be taken in response to Parks’ arrest. E.D. Nixon said, “My God, look what segregation has put in my hands!” Parks was the ideal plaintiff for a test case against city and state segregation laws. While the 15-year-old Claudette Colvin, unwed and pregnant, had been deemed unacceptable to be the center of a civil rights mobilization, King stated that, “Mrs Parks, on the other hand, was regarded as one of the finest citizens of Montgomery—not one of the finest Negro citizens, but one of the finest citizens of Montgomery.” Parks was securely married and employed, possessed a quiet and dignified demeanour, and was politically savvy.

The day of Parks’ trial — Monday, December 5, 1955 — the WPC distributed the 35,000 leaflets. The handbill read, “We are…asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial . . . You can afford to stay out of school for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don’t ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off the buses Monday.”

Rosa Parks on a bus (Dec 1956) after the segregation law was lifted.

It rained that day, but the black community persevered in their boycott. Some rode in carpools, while others travelled in black-operated cabs that charged the same fare as the bus, 10 cents. Most of the remainder of the 40,000 black commuters walked, some as far as 20 miles. In the end, the boycott lasted for 382 days. Dozens of public buses stood idle for months, severely damaging the bus transit company’s finances until the law requiring segregation on public buses was lifted.

Some segregationists retaliated with terrorism. Black churches were burned or dynamited. Martin Luther King’s home was bombed in the early morning hours of January 30, 1956, and E.D. Nixon’s home was also attacked. However, the black community’s bus boycott marked one of the largest and most successful mass movements against racial segregation. It sparked many other protests, and it catapulted King to the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement.

Through her role in sparking the boycott, Rosa Parks played an important part in internationalising the awareness of the plight of African Americans and the civil rights struggle. King wrote in his 1958 book Stride Toward Freedom that Parks’ arrest was the precipitating factor, rather than the cause, of the protest: “The cause lay deep in the record of similar injustices…. Actually, no one can understand the action of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes that eventually, the cup of endurance runs over, and the human personality cries out, ‘I can take it no longer.'”

The Montgomery bus boycott was also the inspiration for the bus boycott in the township of Alexandria, Eastern Cape of South Africa which was one of the key events in the radicalization of the black majority of that country under the leadership of the African National Congress.

Rosa Parks after boycott

After the boycott, Rosa Parks became an icon and leading spokesperson of the civil rights movement in the US. Immediately after the boycott, she lost her job in a department store. For many years she worked as a seamstress.

In 1965, she was hired by African-American U.S. Representative John Conyers. She worked as his secretary until her retirement in 1988. Conyers remarked of Rosa Parks.

“You treated her with deference because she was so quiet, so serene — just a very special person.” [CNN,2004]

Some of the awards Rosa Parks received.

• She was selected to be one of the people to meet Nelson Mandela on his release from prison in 1994.
• In 1996, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton
• In 1997, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal – the highest award of Congress.

Death and funeral

Rosa Parks resided in Detroit until she died at the age of ninety-two on October 24, 2005.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Rosa Parks Biography” , Oxford, UK. www.biographyonline.net. Published 11th Feb 2012. Last updated 13th Feb 2019.

Rosa Parks books

The Rebellious Life of Mrs Rosa Parks at Amazon

Related pages

External links

• Rosa Parks institution

Parks, Rosa

February 4, 1913 to October 24, 2005

On 1 December 1955 local  National Association for the Advancement of Colored People  (NAACP) leader Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. This single act of nonviolent resistance helped spark the  Montgomery bus boycott , a 13-month struggle to desegregate the city’s buses. Under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., the boycott resulted in the enforcement of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that public bus segregation is unconstitutional, and catapulted both King and Parks into the national spotlight.

Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on 4 February 1913, Rosa Louise McCauley Parks grew up in Montgomery and was educated at the laboratory school of Alabama State College. 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. Under her guidance, youth members challenged the Jim Crow system by checking books out of whites-only libraries. The summer before Parks’ arrest, Virginia  Durr  arranged for Parks to travel to Tennessee’s  Highlander Folk School  to attend a workshop entitled “Racial Desegregation: Implementing the Supreme Court Decision.” It was there that Parks received encouragement from fellow participant Septima  Clark , who later joined Highlander’s staff in mid-1956.

When Parks was arrested on 1 December 1955, she was not the first African American to defy Montgomery’s bus segregation law. Nine months earlier, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. In October 1955, 18-year-old Mary Louise Smith had been arrested under similar circumstances, but both cases failed to stir Montgomery’s black leadership to help launch a mass protest. King wrote of Parks’ unique local stature in his memoir,  Stride Toward Freedom , where he talked of how her character and dedication made her widely respected in the African American community.

Although many news accounts depicted Parks as a tired seamstress, Parks explained the deep roots of her act of resistance in her autobiography: “I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in” (Parks, 116).

Parks inspired tens of thousands of black citizens to boycott the Montgomery city buses for over a year. During that period she served as a dispatcher to coordinate rides for protesters and was indicted, along with King and over 80 others, for participation in the boycott. Parks also made appearances in churches and other organizations, including some in the North, to raise funds and publicize the  Montgomery Improvement Association  (MIA).

Parks continued to face harassment following the boycott’s successful conclusion and decided to move to Detroit to seek better employment opportunities. Shortly before her departure, the MIA declared 5 August 1957 “Rosa Parks Day.” A celebration was held at Mt. Zion AME Zion Church, and $800 was presented to Parks. Despite the fanfare, Parks found it hard to believe that her actions launched an entire movement: “I had no idea when I refused to give up my seat on that Montgomery bus that my small action would help put an end to the segregation laws in the South” (Parks, 2).

In 1964 John Conyers, an African American lawyer, received Parks’ endorsement of his campaign to represent Detroit in the U.S. House of Representatives. After he won, he hired Parks as an office assistant. She remained with him until her retirement in 1988.

In 1987 she founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, which provides learning and leadership opportunities for youth and seniors. She was an active supporter of civil rights causes in her elder years. She died in October 2005, at the age of 92. 

Introduction, in  Papers  3:3, 5 .

King,  Stride Toward Freedom , 1958.

Parks,  Rosa Parks , 1992.

Robinson,  Montgomery Bus Boycott , 1987.

ROSA PARKS' BIOGRAPHY

A resource for teaching rosa parks, introduction.

Rosa Parks was not the meek seamstress that she is often portrayed to be.  And her role in the black freedom struggle far surpassed the courageous stand she made on a Montgomery bus on December 1, 1955.  One of the guiding issues of Rosa Parks’ life was justice, and she spent a lifetime challenging the multiple injustices of the law: used to criminalize black life, support segregation, break black protest, and maintain white brutality against black people.  Even her refusal to give up her seat on the bus was in part a challenge to a system that did not value black life or black rights, coming on the heels of the acquittal of the two men who had lynched Emmett Till.

Yet this has not been how the story of Rosa Parks has been taught.  The Rosa Parks that most people learn about and think they know is a quiet and passive woman who was simply tired on a bus one day.  Rosa Parks is too often trapped on the bus, relegated to the distant past, reduced to a single moment of courage rather than her “life history of being rebellious,” as she herself put it.  Yet, criminal justice was a key through-line in her six decades of political work: from her work alongside her husband Raymond on the Scottsboro case in the 1930s; to her decade of NAACP work before the boycott attempting to find justice for black women who had been raped, provide support for wrongfully-accused black men, and document white brutality against black people.  On December 1, 1955, when bus driver James Blake ordered her to move from her seat, she thought about Emmett Till and feeling “pushed as far as she could be pushed” refused.  Her act sparked a yearlong bus boycott–and 89 community leaders including Parks were arrested for their roles in it.  Eight months after the boycott’s successful end, the Parks, who had lost their jobs during the boycott and still could not find work, moved to Detroit.  There she spent the next half century challenging the racism of the North, in schools, housing, jobs and particularly criminal justice –protesting police brutality, joining various prisoner defense committees, and continuing to challenge the mistreatment of black people under the law.

Citations for the Rosa Parks quotes on this website can be found in  The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

It is time to move Rosa Parks beyond the elementary school curriculum. Drawn from The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks and various archival sources including Rosa Parks’ newly-opened papers at the Library of Congress, this project traces the expanse of Rosa Parks’ political work and commitments and the breadth of the Black struggle for justice across the 20th century.  At a moment when many commentators seek to draw a bright line between the good old civil rights movement and new movements for justice today, this fuller history of Rosa Parks shows how dangerous such distinctions are, revealing important continuities between movements then and now and how much her experiences and insights offer us today.

This website is the product of the creative collaboration of Say Burgin, Jessica Murray, and Jeanne Theoharis and supported by the Mellon Seminar for Public Engagement and Collaborative Research at the Center for the Humanities, CUNY Graduate Center.

• African American Heroes

How her refusal to give up her seat sparked a movement

Rosa Parks stood up for African Americans—by sitting down.

Although Abraham Lincoln ’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation granted slaves their freedom, for many years Black people were discriminated against in much of the United States. In southern states, for instance, most Black children were forced to attend separate schools from white kids in classrooms that were often rundown, with outdated books. African Americans also couldn’t eat at the same restaurants as white people and had to sit in the back seats of public buses. Segregation—the separation of races—was enforced by local laws.

Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913. On December 1, 1955, she boarded a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama and sat in the middle, where Black passengers in that city were allowed to sit unless a white person wanted the seat. As the bus filled with new riders, the driver told Parks to give up her seat to a white passenger. She refused. The driver called police, and Parks was arrested.

Her arrest sparked a major protest. For more than a year, most Black people in Montgomery stood together and refused to take city buses. (One of the leaders of the boycott was a young local pastor named Martin Luther King, Jr. ) Public vehicles stood idle, and the city lost money. Still, the Montgomery Bus Boycott didn’t end until a 1956 Supreme Court decision ended racial segregation on public transportation throughout the United States.

Parks died on October 24, 2005. But throughout her life, her refusal to give up her seat inspired many others to fight for African-American rights and helped advance the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s.

Read this next

African american pioneers of science, black history month, 1963 march on washington.

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Rosa Parks: Biography, Quotes, Impact

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, a Black woman named Rosa Parks finished her work day and caught a bus home. Segregation was the law of the land in Montgomery, so while the front of the bus was available to white citizens, Black people had to go to the back. When all the white seats were taken, the bus driver told all the Black people they needed to give up their seats to add an extra row for white people. Rosa Parks stayed seated. The police were called and she was arrested. This defiant act sparked a nationwide campaign to end segregation, protect the rights of Black people and usher in a new era of equality and freedom. In this article, we’ll explore who

Rosa Parks was, what she had to say about her activism and beliefs, and the impact she had on the United States.

By refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus, Rosa Parks is known as “the mother of the Civil Rights Movement.” Her decision sparked campaigns around the country, which eventually led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

Who was Rosa Parks and what did she do?

Rosa Parks was born Rosa McCauley on February 4, 1913. She received her early education at a private school, but while caring for both her grandmother and mother, Rosa had to delay completing her high school credits. In 1932, she married Raymond Parks and then received her high school diploma in 1934. Raymond had less formal education than Rosa, but was an extremely intelligent, activism-minded individual. Both Rosa and Raymond worked with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

In 1955, Rosa was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat. Anti-segregation activists organized a boycott of Montgomery buses for the day of Rosa’s trial. She was given a suspended sentence and a fine, but the boycott was more successful than anticipated. Activists decided to keep boycotting the bus system, electing Martin Luther King Jr., who had just arrived in the city, as the boycott’s manager. Over 70% of Montgomery’s bus patrons were Black, so the impact was immediate. To sustain the boycott, 200 people volunteered their cars while 100 pickup stations were established. Churches also held fundraisers to fund the carpool. On November 13th, 1956, after more than a year of the boycott, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional.

Systemic racism is still a problem in the United States. Check out our article of 10 examples .

What happened to Rosa Parks after the boycott?

During the bus boycott, Rosa lost her job and faced severe harassment, including death threats. Things didn’t improve after the boycott’s success, so in 1957, Rosa, her husband, and her mother moved to Detroit, Michigan. As the Civil Rights movement continued, so did Rosa’s activism , despite the personal costs she and her family endured. From 1966 until her retirement in 1988, she worked as an administrative aid in Congressman John Conyers’ office. She also co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. The nonprofit served young people. Rosa and Raymond never had children of their own, but young people were always important to Rosa. Before Rosa’s arrest, 15-year Claudette Colvin had been arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat. This injustice did not spark a boycott, but Rosa reached out to Claudette. For a while, they were close .

In 1999, Rosa was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor a US civilian can earn. She received many other awards and honorary doctorates from universities around the world. In 2000, Troy University in Montgomery, Alabama established the Rosa Parks Library and Museum. In 2005, Rosa died at age 92. She became the first woman in American history to lie in honor at the Capitol.

Learn more about racial justice and anti-racism by taking these online courses .

What are some of Rosa Parks’ best quotes?

Throughout her many years of activism, Rosa Parks offered countless words of wisdom that resonate to this day. Here are five of her most powerful quotes:

“The time had just come when I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed, I suppose. They placed me under arrest. And I wasn’t afraid. I don’t know why I wasn’t, but I didn’t feel afraid. I had decided that I would have to know once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen, even in Montgomery, Alabama.”

This quote comes from a 1956 radio interview with Rosa Parks, which is one of the earliest interviews she gave. Democracy Now uploaded the audio, as well as a transcript . In this quote, Parks recalls her protest and her lack of fear despite being arrested. The phrase “even in Montgomery, Alabama” is especially striking as it shows the severity of racism and discrimination in that era.

“As I look back on those days, it’s just like a dream. The only thing that bothered me was that we waited so long to make this protest and to let it be known wherever we go that all of us should be free and equal and have all opportunities that others should have.” 

Found on Digital History, this quote comes from a 1995 interview with the iconic activist. In the interview, she reflected on her protest and arrest. When asked if she remembers feeling anger as she chose to not give up her bus seat, she recalls feeling determination, not anger. She wanted to take the opportunity to make it clear she was not going to be treated poorly and that people had endured such treatment for too long.

“I would like to be remembered as one who has always cared for people. I have more concern for people than material things. I have always wanted to help people.”

The Library of Congress has a collection of Rosa Parks’ papers, and among them is a 1975 interview with a college student. The interviewer asks Parks how she wants to be remembered. The activist gives a simple, but powerful answer consistent with the values Parks’ lived with her whole life. She was never someone who sought fame or attention. While her refusal to give up her bus seat is regarded as the spark for the Civil Rights Movement, she never used her position to gain more power. She just wanted to care for people.

“As long as people use tactics to oppress or restrict other people from being free, there is work to be done. Although we made many gains, racism is still alive.”

In 1994, Rosa Parks wrote a book with Gregory J. Reed called Quiet Strength. Published by Zondervan and reprinted as Reflections by Rosa Parks , it offers a series of reflections from the activist on topics like fear, injustice, faith and the future. The quote above, which is from the chapter on injustice, acknowledges the progress made, as well as the progress still needed to secure the freedom and equality of all. While Parks spoke of racism specifically, her remarks apply to all forms of oppression.

“It is better to teach – and live – equality and love than it is to teach hatred.”

In Reflections , Rosa Parks discusses her concern about racial violence and white supremacy on college campuses. However, she expresses hope and a belief that teaching and living out the values of equality and love is better than teaching hatred. She doesn’t want to dwell “on the horrors of the past.” That doesn’t mean she doesn’t want people learning about the past, of course; she encourages young people to learn their history. She wants people to focus on equality and love while doing so.

Interested in more quotes about activism, social justice and human rights? Check out this article.

What impact did Rosa Parks have on the world?

Rosa Parks has been called “the mother of the Civil Rights Movement.” While the fight against racial segregation had been building for years, her decision sparked a massive wave of activism and support not seen before. Her quiet defiance gave the movement something concrete to mobilize around. What was unique about her? Parks was always a humble woman, but Martin Luther King Jr. said it was because “her character was impeccable and her dedication deep-rooted.” Everyone respected her.

The success of the bus boycott turned the tide for Black people in America. President John F. Kennedy introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but was assassinated before it could be made a reality. His successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, signed the bill into law . What did it achieve? It banned discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in public facilities, which ended the Jim Crow system. It also made discrimination in hiring practices illegal and established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is responsible for enforcing the law. The law wasn’t perfect, however. It didn’t address voting rights. In 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. led a march from Selma to Montgomery to draw attention to this error. They were met with fierce and often violent opposition, but the march successfully increased support for the Voting Rights Act. In August of that year, Johnson signed the act into law. Rosa Parks was among those at the event. What began as the simple act of refusing to give up her seat led to the end of legalized racial segregation and discrimination.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

• Occupation: Civil Rights Activist
• Born: February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama
• Died: October 24, 2005 in Detroit, Michigan
• Best known for: Montgomery Bus Boycott

• Rosa was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• Rosa often worked as a seamstress when she needed a job or to make some extra money.
• You can visit the actual bus that Rosa Parks sat in at the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan.
• When she lived in Detroit, she worked as a secretary for U.S. Representative John Conyers for many years.
• She wrote an autobiography called Rosa Parks: My Story in 1992.
• Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

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