Rosa Parks is famous because she was the first African American to protest to a white bus driver, James Blake, for refusing to give up a white person’s seat on the bus in 1955. The people who talked about Rosa, but they always said, “Sweet and soft spoken but made a statement that screamed so loud.”Rosa Louise McCauley was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. She was the first child of her siblings. When she was a baby, she was small, had chronic tonsillitis, and poor health. She was done with Pine Level (name of school) when she was eleven years old. Rosa’s mother enrolled her in Montgomery Industrial School for the Girls (Miss White’s school). After she graduated there, she went to Alabama State Teacher’s College High school. However, she couldn’t graduate because her grandmother Rose Edwards was ill and unfortunately she died. Rosa finally got her high school diploma in 1933 after she married a man named Raymond Parks on December 18, 1932. While that time, there were only less than 7% African Americans had high school diploma.
When Rosa attended to school everyday, all she can do is walking all the way while the white people rode the buses to school. Rosa said, “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.
In 1943, Rosa did protest for a little bit because she protested by entering in front of the bus, not the back black people’s entrance. She barely stepped off and the bus driver doesn’t let her walk out and he drove off. The bus driver doesn’t care if Rosa got hurt. So, she had to walk five miles to reach her home.
On December 1, 1955 on a Thursday, Rosa paid her tickets to get in the bus and sat in the colored seats. But she doesn’t notice that the bus driver was same man since 12 years ago, the one who left her in the rain. A next man who sat with Rosa, he gave up his seat to a white person but Rosa refuse to give up her seat to a white. Blake said, “Why don’t you stand up?” Parks responded, “I don’t think I should have to stand up.” Blake called the police to arrest her.
In the conclusion, Rosa had her quote about this, ‘People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically…..no, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” Also, Rosa Parks gave white people and black people an opportunity to be equal today. If Rosa didn’t stand up, we wouldn’t be friends with black people today. Rosa didn’t give up her seat to white person but it does help black people to fight the laws that black people have the rights and fight the white people so we all can be equal.Work Cited
"Academy of Achievement." Rosa Parks Biography Oct 31, 2005 May 13, 2008 http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/par0bio-1.
"Meet Rosa Parks." Scholastic 2008 May 13, 2008 http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4809.
Parks, Rosa. My Story. USA: Copyright, 1992.
Prince, Richard. "On Rosa Parks, Filing for History." 2008 May 13, 2008 http://www.maynardije.org/columns/dickprince/051026_prince/.
"Rosa Parks Biography." Rosa & Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development 2008 May 13, 2008 http://www.rosaparks.org/bio.html.
Wikipedia Rosa Parks October 30, 2005 May 13, 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks.
1 comment:
Rosa Parks was also my one of favorite historical figure because she is strong to stand up for herself and have a gut which I liked whoever have those inside them. I don’t like people who withdraw and follower because I believe people need happiness, comfortable, and free. Sometime, I wonder if it wouldn’t for her, and what would have people been done? Will they be same in nowadays? The connection between white and black will be different? There are million questions filled in my mind that has unanswered but I am glad she did it since the black and white became respect each other, love, and share.
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