Rosa Parks

By Brittany B.

Her Childhood• Born in Tuskegee,

Alabama on February, 4, 1913.

• Inherited her name from her maternal grandmother.

• Grew up in a plywood shanty in poor shape.

• She loved church and loved to go and sing her heart out.

• As a child, Rosa got sick with tonsillitis often, and she stayed home sick, unable to swallow without terrible pain, because they couldn’t afford a doctor.

12 Years Before

• It was on a November afternoon in 1943.• Rosa had just got off a hard work day as a

seamstress.• She was so tired, she just boarded the bus

through the front door, when she was told to enter through the back.

• The bus driver told her to get off and she stood her ground.

• He started to physically push her off and she didn’t want to get hit and got off the bus.

The Incident• She was released from a

hard day of work.• She paid the dime, for the

fee to ride the bus, and sat down in a seat in the black section.

• The third bus stop into her ride, the bus began to get full.

• Three white men boarded the bus but only two got seats.

• The bus driver immediately turned around and looked at Rosa when he saw one man still standing.

• He demanded that she give up her seat to the white man.

The Incident (continued)

• The man didn’t want just one seat, he wanted four, because he wasn’t going to sit by no “colored folk.”

• The bus driver asked her “Are you gonna stand up?”

• No was her firm answer that changed the world.

• She was arrested within minutes and taken to the jail.

The Boycott• December 5, 1955• Bus boycott was released:• “ We are asking every Negro to stay off the buses

Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don’t ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday.”

• Every citizen but a few refused to ride the bus.• The boycott lasted for 381 days• December 10, 1956, all buses were disegregated.

The Rosa Parks Organization

• Elaine Eason Steele and Rosa became very good friends as Rosa aged.

• Elaine catered to her every need.• Steele had an idea to have Rosa’s everlasting

monument and legacy to live on.• In 1987 they created, The Rosa and Raymond

Parks Institute for Self-Development • It motivated children to speak up for what they

think is wrong, and to teach them how to hold themselves with dignity and honor in their lives.

Until Death Do Us Part• October 24, 2005

• Rosa Parks passed away in her sleep due to natural causes in her Detroit home.

• It all started with the word: No• In her last interview in 2000,

Parks said: “God sat with me as I remained calm and determined not to be treated with any less dignity than any other citizen.”

• Researchers today have seemed to find and refurbish the exact bus that Rosa Parks changed the world in. (pictured to the right)