Happy Birthday Rosa Parks

what must be done does away with fear” - Rosa Parks

(Rosa Parks)

Rosa Parks was born as Rosa McCauley on February 4th 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama, USA. As a small child she suffered from chronic tonsillitis. McCauley attended the Industrial school for girls. As a kid she often fought White kids who would bully her.

(McCauley as a kid)

Also as a kid the Ku Klux Klan would march down the street in front of her house and her grandfather would be on the front porch with a shotgun. She later dropped out of school to take care of her sick grandmother. In 1932 McCauley married Raymond Parks. She changed her last name to “Parks”.

(McCauley (Right) with her husband Raymond Parks (Left)

In 1933 Parks went back to finish high school. In 1943 Parks joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. She was elected secretary. In 1944 she had a job at Maxwell air force base. In 1955 Parks attended a mass meeting at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery that addressed the killing of Black teenager Emmett Till. Also in 1955 Parks sat on a city bus and was told to move to the colored section of the bus. She refused to move to the colored section and she was arrested. She was charged with a violation of Chapter 6, Section 11 segregation law of the Montgomery City code.

(Parks in 1955)

She was bailed out of jail the next evening by the Montgomery NAACP president. After this a bus boycott was planned.

(Parks (Right) with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Left))

The bus boycott lasted for a year. Parks then became an icon within the civil rights movement.

(Parks in 1956)

In 1957 she moved to Virginia. Parks constantly received death threats. She later moved to Michigan. She also met and befriended Malcolm X. In 1965 Parks joined the Selma to Montgomery march.

(Parks in 1965)

In 1967 during the Detroit riots Parks lived a mile from the epicenter of it. Also in 1967 Parks served on a "people's tribunal" investigating the killing of three young men by police during the 1967 Detroit uprising. Parks also supported and visited the Black Panther school in Oakland, CA. In the early 1970s Parks organized for the freedom of political prisoners in the United States. In 1977 her husband died of throat cancer. In 1979 her mother died of cancer.

(Parks in 1977)

In 1980 Parks co founded the Rosa L. Parks Scholarship Foundation. In 1987 she co founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. In 1992 Parks published her autobiography.

(Parks in 1992)

In 1994 Parks’ home was robbed and she was assaulted. Also in 1994 she had a highway named after her in MO.In 1995 she published Quite Strength.

(Parks in 1995)

In 1999 Parks cameoed in the TV series “Touched by an Angel”. In 2002 she received an eviction notice of her apartment. Her rent was paid by the Hartford Memorial Baptist church in Detroit.

(Parks in 2002)

On October 24th, 2005 Rosa Parks died of natural causes in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She was 92 years old.

(Parks’ funeral)

Today is her 104th birthday and we would all like to say happy birthday and rest in peace Rosa Parks.

Videos of Rosa Parks

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2DraWv6vmU  “December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama”
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzTkHrRkhpA  “Rosa Parks - Interview”
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1rsmgKnpdc  “Rosa Parks - To Tell the Truth (1980)”
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM6G2seofbQ  “Rosa Parks - One Day of Peace, Stockholm November 1994”
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Denb3DwJc0  “Rosa Parks Speech at the Million Man March on October 16, 1995”
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGvx_crHiyE  “Rosa Parks and Bill Clinton at CBC 1999”
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tuCAAPOZQQ  “The Rosa Parks Story - Trailer”