The Rebellious Life Of Rosa Parks

1. Jim Crow was a set of laws enforcing racial segregation in the southern United States from 1877 to the 1960’s. These barbaric and corrupt laws were set mainly against African Americans, limiting their human rights such as voting. The Whites firmly believed they were the superior race over African Americans because they labeled themselves as being more intelligent and civilized.

Rosa Parks: My Story is an autobiography. Parks tells about her vital role in the struggle for equality. In detail this book explains how the civil rights movements started. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a segregated bus, beginning the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott.

Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks were inspirational leaders that contributed greatly towards the civil rights movement. With racial discrimination surrounding King and Park, growing up as an African American made it hard and colored people were unfairly treated. Both King and Park knew the inequalities and sought education to aid themselves in their unfair life. Despite this, Park and King were brought up responsibly by their parents, King was an active civil rights activist, participating in the ‘Montgomery Bus Boycott’, ‘March on Washington’ and lead the ‘Selma to Montgomery march’. Rosa Parks was an influential figure contributing to the civil rights movement as she was the chosen ‘test case’ the NCAACP were looking for.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, one of the leaders of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP] refused to give up her seat to a white person on a segregated city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, despite being reprimanded by the driver (Schulke 166). Montgomery, Alabama was known for its terrible treatment of blacks. The buses in particular had been a source of tension between the city and black citizens for many years (Schulke, 167). As a result of refusing to give up her seat, Rosa Parks was arrested. Rosa Parks' popularity among the black community, proved to be the spark that ignited the non-violent Civil Rights Movement (Norrell 2).

On Thursday evening December 1, 1955, Rosa boards a Montgomery City Bus to go home after a long day working as a seamstress. She walks back to the section for blacks, and takes a seat. The law stated that they could sit there if no White people were standing. Rosa parks never liked segregation rules and has been fighting against them for more than ten years in the NAACP, but until then had never broke any of the unjust rules. As the bus stops at more places, more white people enter the bus, all the seats in the “White Only” section was filled and the bus driver orders Rosa’s row to move to the back of the bus, they all moved, accept Rosa. She was arrested and fined for violating a city regulation. This act of defiance began a movement that ended legal Segregation in America, and made her an inspiration to freedom devoted people everywhere.

Even though Rosa Parks stood up for her rights she still suffered after the arrest. She lost her department store job and her husband was fired because he talked about Rosa’s legal case to his boss. They had to leave Montgomery because they could not find any other jobs, no one would hire her. They ended up moving to Detroit Michigan and she found a job as a secretary and receptionist in U.S. Representative John Conyers congressional office. She also started to serve on the board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Rosa Parks is one of the famous activists of civil disobedience; she has experienced the foulness of segregation all her life. She was born Rosa McCauley on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. She received a poor education from a poor segregated school house, and dropped out of Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes to care for her sick grandma. She married Raymond Parks, a barber and an activist of NAACP at age 19 (Rosa).

“Jim Crow Laws were statutes and ordinances established between 1874 and 1975 to separate the white and black races in the American South. In theory, it was to create "separate but equal" treatment, but in practice Jim Crow Laws condemned black citizens to inferior treatment and facilities.” The Jim Crows Laws created tensions and disrespect towards blacks from whites. These laws separated blacks and whites from each other and shows how race determines how an individual is treated. The Jim Crow laws are laws that are targeted towards black people. These laws determine how an individual is treated by limiting their education, having specific places where blacks and whites could or could not go, and the punishments for the “crime”

I surely do not know the author’s thesis on civil rights, I just understand that he knows Rosa Park's thesis and view on civil rights and how she contributed to creating them. The author tells the reader how Rosa Parks was always modest about her role in the civil rights movement, giving credit to a higher power for her decision not to give up her seat. the author ends with Rosa Park quoting, “I was fortunate God provided me with the strength needed at the precise time conditions were ripe for change. I am thankful to him every day that he gave me the strength not to move.” An article in the New York Times explains that: For Rosa Parks, her decision not to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery Alabama, bus on Dec. 1, 1955 wasn't the first time the seamstress had chosen not to give in. They also explain how Parks had been an active member of the local NAACP chapter since 1943 and how they had marched on behalf of the Scottsboro boys, who were arrested in Alabama in 1931 for raping two white women. It goes on to say with a simple act of refusal, a move which landed Parks in prison, a motion like the Montgomery Bus Boycott who set off to start the Civil Rights Movement. They end the article by saying when the bulldogs and water hoses were unleashed a decade later, in the streets of

Rosa Parks' refusal to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus was a slap in the face to hard line Jim Crow Southerners who thought that blacks are inferior to whites; it also happened to be illegal, and Parks was swiftly and promptly arrested for breaking a Jim Crow law. Little did the police arresting her know that this arrest would lead to the downfall of the very law they felt they needed, and wanted, to enforce. Along with MLK's protests and marches, a Federal Court determined segregation on buses to be unconstitutional. That would not have happened had it not been for Parks' refusal to obey a law that was both ludicrous and morally wrong. Every human on this earth, regardless of skin color or ethnicity, is exactly that: human, and therefore they deserve

One cold December day a woman got onto a bus after a long shift at work, exhausted from the day she plopped down in a seat near the front. The next stop many white people boarded and the bus started to get full so they moved back until they reached the woman's seat. This was a problem because this woman, Rosa Parks, was black and had to move or she would end up in jail. Even with that knowledge, she refused to give that seat up. Many blacks faced this problem every day during the Civil Rights Movement, but weren't brave enough to stand up for their rights like Rosa was. After Rosa said "no" many realized they could stand up for their rights as well. Parks helped with people's involvement during these tough times and was involved herself. Due

Rosa Parks was an important person towards the evolution of a civil rights movement. This occurred on December 1st, 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. Even though in today’s society, this can be a show of a childish gesture. But, during the time of a civil movement; this had a significant impact on people of both races. African Americans now had a chance to speak up and follow the footsteps of Rosa Parks. This includes people such as the memorable Martin Luther King. However, the actions Rosa Parks committed had consequences. This would continue until the newer generations to come. In, “Rosa Parks Redux: Racial Mobility Projects on the Journey to Work”, it states the following statement. “Her refusal crystallized the insidious nature of segregation in the South and laid bare its brutal banality. Sixty years later, cities in the putatively post racial era continue to generate profound racial inequalities, and commuting continues to embody, reveal, and sometimes contest the twenty-first-century city as a generator of racial inequality.” Even after so much time, people still want change because equality is not wupon every

“The only tired I was, was tired of giving in” (Parks). I was tired, tired of being oppressed, and tired of being stepped on by the law, and my fellow people. That was the only tired i felt. The Montgomery Bus protest sparked a fire that would be felt throughout the entire country, and it was the spark that ignited the fire of the civil rights movement that shook the world. The boycott was the first of it, once light was shown on the problem, she began travelling cross country spreading information about civil rights, and sparking more peaceful protest. Rosa Parks was an important figure that changed the direction of the United States of America. She was trying to get home from work that day, but she turned into an icon for the civil rights movement, and shined a light on the unfair treatment of african americans.

Rosa Parks was the center of one of the greatest civil rights movements in the mid-20th-century. She became an icon due to her calm refusal to give up her seat to a white man, which triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott beginning in 1955 (Baggett, 2016). Rosa Parks acted with courage and stood up for what she believed in; paving the way for many American citizens to follow in her footsteps - or lack of footsteps. She stayed true to herself and inspired others to take similar courageous actions throughout the civil rights movement in America.

This story is based mostly on the life of Rosa Parks and her growing up in a segregation filled state. During the beginning of the book she talks about her family, what she used to do for a living and the conflicts between her parents. She tells us how she used to work on a plantation picking cotton for the earlier part of her life. Also she tells us how adjusting to living life without slavery was a bit harder than they had expected so soon after the war; their family underwent many changes and for the first time was able to purchase land. Rosa Parks tells us about her life from her earliest memories to the day she committed the act that helped end segregation.