ROSA PARKS

What does it really mean to stand up for freedom? Can one person really make a difference? Over the years I have seen many posters, signs and billboards extolling one cause or another. I have listened to protest songs across the land and marched with my own slogans,and really believed, but always there was that little piece of me that said are we really making a difference?. Is anybody really listening?

Rosa Parks was, and is my role model for saying yes. Each of us count!!! I am proud to submit a short biography of Rosa Parks as a shining example for women everywhere to emulate. In fact, when I met her in 1995, when she was about 82, and I was 13, I knew this was one special lady....

Most historians date the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the United States to December 1, 1955. This was the day when an unknown seamstress in Montgomery , Alabama refused to give up her seat to a white male 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. not just African-Americans in the South.

Rosa Parks was born in 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama and remembered the lack of civil rights striving for just survival with her family.Her early childhood brought her early experiences with racial discrimination and activism for racial equality. She worked quietly for many years to improve the lot of African_Americans in the segregated south.

The Montgomery city code required that all public transportation be segregated and that bus drivers had police powers for the purposes of enforcing this code. When an African-American boarded the bus, they paid their fare, got off the bus and re-boarded at the back door. When the seats in front filled up, and more whites got in, blacks would be asked to give up their seats , even in the back. Rosa Parks was tired that day, after a long day at work in a department store. She boarded the bus and took a seat in an area of the bus designated for "colored" passengers. As the bus continued, it began to fill with white passengers and the driver noticed several were standing. He stopped the bus, moved a sign back separating blacks and whites, and asked four black passengers to give up their seats. Three complied , but Rosa refused and remain seated. She was eventually arrested and released on bail and paid a $10 fine and $4.court fees.,and said her refusal wasn't because of being physically tired , but "the only tired I was, was the tired of giving in".

This led to the local chapter of the NAACP to organize a boycott of city buses and they hoped African_American riders would support it. They formed an Association and elected a newcomer, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., a local minister as leader to take further action to create real change. Most of the 40,00 African -Americans supported the boycott in many ways and eventually crippled the transit company's finances. Although rebuffed locally with everything from black owned taxis having insurance cancelled to being arrested for violating old laws prohibiting boycotts., the boycott succeeded in federal court. It should be noted here that black churches were burned, many blacks arrested, and even King's home was bombed. However with Rosa Parks and Martin Luther king, Jr. leading the way, the boycott continued. The events during 1956 are really a different topic for another day) The Supreme Court, in November, 1956, upheld a lower federal court ruling declaring Alabama's racial segregation laws for public transit unconstitutional. The 382 day Montgomery Bus Boycott was a success. In fact, the Montgomery bus boycott was the inspiration for a bus boycott in Alexandria, South Africa which was one of the key events in the radicalization of the black majority of that country.

Rosa Parks became a symbol of the civil rights movement and eventually founded an institute for self development where they run Pathways to Freedom bus tours introducing young people to important civil rights and underground railroad sites throughout the country.

Rosa Parks received many accolades during her lifetime and was awarded the President Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given by the executive branch and the Congressional Gold medal, the highest award given by the legislative branch, and in 1995, was named one of the 20 most influential people of the 20th Century. On October 24, 2005, at the age of 92, Rosa Parks died quietly in her apartment and lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda in Washington DC. She was the first woman ever to lie in honor. ( an estimated 50,000 people viewed her casket) .

A fitting conclusion to this short biography was when a statue of her was placed in the United States Capitol's Statuary Hall, it was said "By placing her statue in the heart of the nation's Capitol, we commemorate her work for a more perfect union, and we commit ourselves to continue to struggle for justice for every American."

Please excuse the lack of images which for some reason could not be uploaded into this post.. I recommend, if any of you are interested, to search under Rosa Parks, and many pictures of both the boycott and herself are available for you to see. Thank you......................