Civil Rights Leader

Rosa Parks

This is her story

 Rosa Parks
 She was born 4th February 1913, in Tuskegee,
Alabama.
 She grew up on a farm with her brother,
mother and grandparents.
 She worked as a seamstress after she left
school.
 Rosa Parks Facts

 Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley

on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama.
 After her parents, James and Leona McCauley,
separated when Rosa was two, Rosa’s mother
moved the family to Pine Level, Alabama, to live
with her parents, Rose and Sylvester Edwards.
 Conti…….
• Both of Rosa's grandparents were former
slaves and strong advocates for racial equality;
the family lived on the Edwards' farm, where
Rosa would spend her youth. In one
experience, Rosa's grandfather stood in front
of their house with a shotgun while Ku Klux
Klan members marched down the street.
 Civil Rights
 Black people (African- Americans) living in
Alabama were not treated equally to white
Americans.
 They did not have equal rights.

Example: Black people and white people had to sit in

certain seats on the bus. If all the “white seats” were
taken then a black person had to stand up to let the
white person sit down!
This was the law in Alabama!
Segregation (separation)
 Standing up for her rights.

On December 1, 1955, after a long day's

work at a Montgomery department store,
where she worked as a seamstress, Rosa
Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus
for home. She took a seat in the first of
several rows designated for "colored"
passengers.
 Conti…..
•The Montgomery City Code required that all
public transportation be segregated and that bus
drivers had the "powers of a police officer of the
city while in actual charge of any bus for the
purposes of carrying out the provisions" of the
code. While operating a bus, drivers were
required to provide separate but equal
accommodations for white and black passengers
by assigning seats.
 Conti…..
• This was accomplished with a line roughly in
the middle of the bus separating white
passengers in the front of the bus and African-
American passengers in the back. When an
African-American passenger boarded the bus,
they had to get on at the front to pay their fare
and then get off and re-board the bus at the
back door.
 Conti…
• As the bus Rosa was riding continued on its
route, it began to fill with white passengers.
Eventually, the bus was full and the driver
noticed that several white passengers were
standing in the aisle. The driver of Rosa’s bus
stopped the bus and moved the sign separating
the two sections back one row, asking four
black passengers to give up their seats.
 Conti…
• The city's bus ordinance didn't specifically
give drivers the authority to demand a
passenger to give up a seat to anyone,
regardless of color. However, Montgomery bus
drivers had adopted the custom of moving
back the sign separating black and white
passengers and, if necessary, asking black
passengers give up their seats to white
passengers.
 Conti…
• If the black passenger protested, the bus driver
had the authority to refuse service and could
call the police to have them removed.

• Three of the other black passengers on Rosa’s

bus complied with the driver, but Rosa refused
and remained seated.
 Conti…
• The driver demanded, "Why don't you stand
up?" to which Rosa replied, "I don't think I
should have to stand up." The driver called the
police and had her arrested. Later, Rosa
recalled that her refusal wasn't because she
was physically tired, but that she was tired of
giving in.
“It was a small act of defiance, she refused to give
up her seat, as a black woman to a white man, this
changed the course of American history.” BBC News.
 Boycott of the Bus System
 Boycott means: to refuse to buy something or to take
part in something as a way of protesting.

 By boycotting the buses they

hoped to change the laws of
segregation. The buses
depended on African-
Americans to keep their
business running.
 Conti…
• On the evening that Rosa Parks was
arrested, E .D . Nixon, head of the local
chapter of the NAACP, began forming
plans to organize a boycott of
Montgomery's city buses. Ads were
placed in local papers, and handbills were
printed and distributed in black
neighborhoods.
 Conti…
• Members of the African-American community
were asked to stay off city buses on Monday,
December 5, 1955—the day of Rosa's trial—in
protest of her arrest. People were encouraged
to stay home from work or school, take a cab
or walk to work. With most of the African-
American community not riding the bus,
organizers believed a longer boycott might be
successful.
 Conti…
• When Rosa arrived at the courthouse for trial
that morning with her attorney, Fred Gray, she
was greeted by a bustling crowd of around 500
local supporters, who rooted her on. Following
a 30-minute hearing, Rosa was found guilty of
violating a local ordinance and was fined $10,
as well as a $4 court fee. Inarguably the
biggest event of the day, however, was what
Rosa's trial had triggered.
 Conti…
• The Montgomery Bus Boycott, as it came to
be known, was a huge success, lasting for 381
days. The city's buses were, by and large,
empty. Some people carpooled and others rode
in African-American-operated cabs, but most
of the estimated 40,000 African-American
commuters living in the city at the time had
opted to walk to work that day—some as far as
20 miles.
 Conti…
• Due to the size and scope of, and loyalty to,
boycott participation, the effort continued for
several months.
 Conti…
• The city of Montgomery had become a
victorious eyesore, with dozens of public
buses sitting idle, ultimately severely crippling
finances for its transit company. With the
boycott's progress, however, came strong
resistance. Some segregationists retaliated
with violence.
 Conti…
• Black churches were burned, and both Martin Luther King
Jr.'s and E.D. Nixon's homes were destroyed by bombings.
Still, further attempts were made to end the boycott.

•The insurance was canceled for the city taxi system that was
used by African Americans. Black citizens were arrested for
violating an antiquated law prohibiting boycotts.
 Non-violent Protest
 The boycott went on for 13 months.
 Instead of riding the buses to work, many
African-American people in Montgomery,
Alabama, found other ways to get to work.
 How else do you think they got to work?

Walked Cycled Shared cars

Shared cars
Walked Cycled
 Life After the Bus Boycott

• Although she had become a symbol of the

• Civil Rights Movement , Rosa Parks suffered
hardship in the months following her arrest in
Montgomery and the subsequent boycott. She
lost her department store job and her husband
was fired after his boss forbade him to talk
about his wife or their legal case.
 After a Supreme Court
• Civil Rights Leader
Rosa Parks Smiling
• Rosa Parks smiling after
a Supreme Court ruling
banning segregation on
city public transit
vehicles took effect.
 Conti…
• Unable to find work, they eventually left
Montgomery; the couple, along with Rosa's
mother, moved to Detroit, Michigan. There,
Rosa made a new life for herself, working as a
secretary and receptionist in U.S.
Representative John Conyer's congressional
office. She also served on the board of the
Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
 Conti…
• In 1987, with longtime friend Elaine Eason
Steele, Rosa founded the Rosa and Raymond
Parks Institute for Self-Development. The
organization runs "Pathways to Freedom" bus
tours, introducing young people to important
civil rights and Underground Railroad sites
throughout the country.
• Montgomery, Alabama Remembers Rosa Parks
• MONTGOMERY, AL - OCTOBER 28: A
trolley passes the site where civil rights icon
Rosa Parks was arrested December 1, 1955, for
not giving up her bus seat to a white man
October 28, 2005 in Montgomery, Alabama.
• Rosa Parks, who died Monday at the age of 92,
changed history on December 1, 1955 when she
refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a
white passenger.
 US civil rights
• This 01 December 2001 file photo shows US
civil rights legend Rosa Parks attending at the
Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan,
during a ceremony commemorating the 46th
anniversary of her 1955 arrest aboard a bus in
Montgomery, Alabama. The US Supreme Court
was to allow Parks to sue the rap group
Outkast, which named one of its songs after
her, a court spokesman said 09 December 2003.
 Civil Rights Leader
• The diminutive Parks, now 90, refused
back in 1955 to give up her seat to a
white man on a segregated
Montgomery, Alabama, city bus.
• The incident triggered a black boycott
of the city, and the Supreme Court
ruled the following year that
segregation in transportation was
unconstitutional. The Outkast song, on
its hit 1998 album 'Aquemini,' oddly
alluded to Parks in its lyric 'Ah, ha,
hush that fuss. Everybody move to the
back of the bus.
 Conti…
• Her arrest for this triggered a 381-day boycott
of the Montgomery bus system.
 When Did Rosa Parks Die?

• On October 24, 2005, at the age of 92, Rosa

Parks quietly died in her apartment in Detroit,
Michigan. She had been diagnosed the
previous year with progressive dementia,
which she had been suffering from since at
least 2002. Her death was marked by several
memorial services, among them lying in honor
at the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C.
 Conti…
• where an estimated 50,000 people viewed her
casket. Rosa was interred between her husband
and mother at Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery,
in the chapel's mausoleum. Shortly after her
death, the chapel was renamed the Rosa L.
Parks Freedom Chapel.
• This 01 December 2001 file photo shows US
civil rights legend Rosa Parks attending at the
Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan,
during a ceremony commemorating the 46th
anniversary of her 1955 arrest aboard a bus in
Montgomery, Alabama. The US Supreme Court
was to allow Parks to sue the rap group
Outkast, which named one of its songs after
her, a court spokesman said 09 December 2003.
 Conti…
• The diminutive Parks, now 90, refused
back in 1955 to give up her seat to a white
man on a segregated Montgomery,
Alabama, city bus. The incident triggered
a black boycott of the city, and the
Supreme Court ruled the following year
that segregation in transportation was
unconstitutional. The Outkast song, on its
hit 1998 album 'Aquemini,' oddly alluded
to Parks in its lyric 'Ah, ha, hush that fuss.
Everybody move to the back of the bus.
 Icon of Rosa Parks.
• US President Barack Obama applauds
after unveiling a statue of Rosa Parks
during an unveiling in Statuary Hall on
Capitol Hill February 27, 2013 in
Washington, DC. US President Barack
Obama, Speaker of the House John
Boehner (R-OH) and others attended the
ceremony to unveil a statue of American
civil rights era icon Rosa Parks.
•  
 Success!
The boycott ended when the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
the segregation laws on
Alabama’s buses were not
legal.