Rosa Parks’ Role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott
On December 1, 1955, forty-three year old Rosa Parks boarded a Montgomery, Alabama city bus after finishing work as a tailor's assistant at the Montgomery Fair department store. As all black patrons were required to do, she paid her fare at the front of the bus and then re-boarded in the rear. She sat in a vacant seat in the back next to a man and across the aisle from two women.After a few stops, the seats in the front of the bus became full and a white man who had boarded, stood in the aisle. The bus driver asked Parks, the man next to her, and the two women to let the white man have their seats. As the others moved, Parks remained in her seat. The bus driver again asked her to move, but she refused. The driver called the police, and she was arrested.
The arrest of Parks sparked the bus boycott in Montgomery. After Parks arrest, community leaders spread the word that a one-day bus boycott was scheduled for December 5. On that cold and cloudy morning, onlookers watched as the buses drove by with few black passengers on board. The boycott had been a success. The boycott continued and lasted for 381 days. On December 20, 1956, buses were desegregated.
Rosa Parks’ Childhood
Parks was born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama to James McCauley and Leona McCauley. At the age of two, Parks, her brother, and her mother moved to Pine Level, Alabama to live with her grandparents. At the age of eleven, she began attending the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, which was funded by liberal northern women. She later began attending Alabama State Teachers College.
Parks Works on Behalf of African Americans
Upon completion, she moved with her husband, Raymond Parks, to Montgomery. Parks and her husband joined the local chapter of the NAACP. She acted as the secretary from 1943 to 1956. She also worked to help improve conditions for African Americans. She worked on cases involving such issues as, flogging, peonage, rape, and murder.After her stand against bus segregation in Montgomery in 1955, Parks lost her seamstress job. Parks and her husband moved to Detroit in 1957. From 1965 to 1988 she served on staff for United States Representative John Conyers.
Rosa Parks’ Work is Honored
In 1979, Parks won the Spingarn Medal for her civil rights work. Also, in her honor the Southern Christian Leadership Council established the annual Rosa Parks Freedom Award. In 1987, after Raymond Parks' death, she founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development to help young people. In 1996, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 1999 she received the Congressional Gold Medal.Parks died of natural causes at her home in Detroit on October 24, 2005.
