Rosa ParksShahrukh Khan

Who She WasRosa Parks was an African American women who had to deal with both of

the struggles of being colored and inferior to men. During her time, there was a great deal of discrimination towards African Americans as they did not have equal opportunities compared to whites.

She was an African American seamstress who took the bus to and from work

every day in Montgomery, Alabama. She had grown up in a segregated South, where there were separate rules for blacks and whites.

In 1943, Rosa Parks became active in the Civil Rights movement and joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), elected as secretary.

Who She Was ContinuedShe had attended the Highlander Folk School, a Tennessee

center for training activists for workers' rights and racial equality. She acted as a private citizen "tired of giving in". Although widely honored in later years, she also suffered for her actions; she was fired from her job as a seamstress in a local department store.

In 1943, Rosa Parks became active in the Civil Rights movement and joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), elected as secretary.

What she didIn 1900, Montgomery passed a city ordinance to segregate bus passengers by race. According to law, no passenger would be required to move or give up his seat if no other seats were available. Over time, Montgomery bus drivers adopted the practice of requiring black riders to move when there was no white-only seats left.

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger after the white section was filled. This event marked the start of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

The Montgomery Bus BoycottOn Sunday, December 4, 1955, plans for the

Montgomery Bus Boycott were announced at black churches in the area, and a front-page article in the Montgomery Advertiser helped spread the word. At a church rally that night, those attending agreed unanimously to continue the boycott until they were treated with the level of courtesy they expected, until black drivers were hired, and until seating in the middle of the bus was handled on a first-come basis.

The boycott lasted for 382 days, costing the bus company a great deal of money. The boycott continued until November 13, when the Supreme Court declared the Montgomery segregation laws illegal.

How it Affects Us“I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free... so other people

would be also free.” - Rosa Parks

Blacks in other southern cities realized that if protest worked in Montgomery, it could work elsewhere, and they began to protest segregation in their own towns. Park’s actions was only the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. Also, because of his role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Martin Luther King Jr. gained national prominence and rose to the forefront of the civil rights movement. The Civil Rights Movement brought equality to the colored as nowadays everyone shares equal rights and opportunity.

The United States Congress later called her "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement". Her Birthday (Feb. 4) and the day of her arrest (Dec. 1) have both become Rosa Parks day.

Her MotivationAs a child, Parks recalled going to elementary school in Pine

Level, where school buses took white students to their new school and black students had to walk to theirs:

"I'd see the bus pass every day... But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and a white world."

This quote gives us insight as to how Parks felt walking to school instead of taking the bus. She realized there was a difference between color that separated these two different types of people. Walking to school motivated her to spark a change that would lead to equality for everyone.

Sources• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks

• http://history1900s.about.com/od/1950s/qt/RosaParks.htm• http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAparksR.htm