March is Women's History Month

Rosa Parks

Photo taken of Rosa Parks in 1955

 with Martine Luther King Jr.

 in the background.

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks

(February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005)

 was an African American civil rights activist

whom the U.S. Congress later called the

 "Mother of the Modern-Day

Civil Rights Movement."

On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama,

Parks, age 42, refused to obey bus driver

James Blake's order that she give up her

seat to make room for a white passenger.

Parks' act of defiance became an

important symbol of the modern

 Civil Rights Movement and Parks

became an international icon of resistance

 to racial segregation. She organized and

collaborated with civil rights leaders, including

boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr.,

 helping to launch him to national

 prominence in the civil rights movement.

SHE NEVER GAVE UP !

In 1932, Rosa married Raymond Parks, a barber

from Montgomery, at her mother's house.

 Raymond was a member of the NAACP.  After

her marriage, Rosa took numerous jobs, ranging

 from domestic worker to hospital aide. At her

husband's urging, she finished her high school

studies in 1933, at a time when less than 7% of

African Americans had a high school diploma.

 Despite the Jim Crow laws that made political

 participation by black people difficult, she

succeeded in registering to vote on her third try.

In December 1943,

Parks became active in the Civil Rights

Movement, joined the Montgomery chapter 

of the NAACP, and was elected volunteer

secretary to its president, Edgar Nixon.

Of her position, she later said,

 "I was the only woman there,

and they needed a secretary,

and I was too timid to say no."

 She continued as secretary until 1957.

 In the 1940s, Parks and her husband were

members of the Voters' League.

Sometime soon after 1944, she held a

brief job at Maxwell Air Force Base,

a federally owned area where racial

segregation was not allowed,

 and rode on an integrated trolley.

SHE PERSEVERED!

Speaking to her biographer, Parks noted,

 "You might just say Maxwell opened my eyes up."

SHE STOOD UP FOR WHAT WAS RIGHT!

 Parks worked as a housekeeper

and seamstress for a white couple,

Clifford and Virginia Durr. The politically

 liberal Durrs became her friends and

encouraged Parks to attend—

and eventually helped sponsor her—

at the Highlander Folk School,

an education center for workers' rights and

racial equality in Monteagle, Tennessee,

 in the summer of 1955.

THE DAY ROSA DID NOT GIVE UP!!

Photo of the bus where Rosa Parks
would not give up her seat!


After a day at work at Montgomery Fair

department store, Parks boarded the

Cleveland Avenue bus at around 6 p.m.,

Thursday, December 1, 1955,

in downtown Montgomery.

She paid her fare and sat in an

 empty seat in the first row of

 back seats reserved for blacks

 in the "colored" section, which was

 near the middle of the bus

and directly behind the ten seats

 reserved for white passengers.

Initially, she had not noticed that

the bus driver was the same man,

 James F. Blake, who had left her in

the rain in 1943. As the bus traveled

 along its regular route, all of the

white-only seats in the bus filled up. The

bus reached the third stop in front

of the Empire Theater, and several

white passengers boarded.

Years later, in recalling the

events of the day, Parks said,

"When that white driver stepped back toward us,

when he waved his hand and ordered

us up and out of our seats, I felt a determination

cover my body like a quilt on a winter night."

Parks said,

"The driver wanted us to

 stand up, the four of us.

 We didn't move at the beginning,

but he says, 'Let me have these seats.'

 And the other three people moved,

but I didn't."

SHE WAS NOT AFRAID!

During a 1956 radio interview

with Sydney Rogers in West Oakland

several months after her arrest,

when asked why she had decided

not to vacate her bus seat,

 Parks said,

 "I would have to know for once

 and for all what rights I had

 as a human being and a citizen."

She also detailed her motivation

 in her autobiography,

My Story:

“ 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,

 or no more tired than I usually was

at the end of a working day. I was

not old, although some people

have an image of me as being old then.

I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was,

was tired of giving in.

I did not want to be mistreated,

I did not want to be deprived

 of a seat that I had paid for.

 It was just time...

there was opportunity for me

to take a stand to express the way

 I felt about being treated in that manner.

I had not planned to get arrested.

I had plenty to do without having

to end up in jail. But when I had

to face that decision, I didn't hesitate

to do so because I felt that we had

 endured that too long. The more

 we gave in, the more we complied

with that kind of treatment,

the more oppressive it became."

HER COURAGE MOVED MOUNTAINS!!

The day of Parks' trial

— Monday, December 5, 1955 —

 the WPC distributed the 35,000 leaflets.

 

The handbill read,

 "We are...asking every Negro

to stay off the buses Monday

in protest of the arrest and trial ...

You can afford to stay out of school

 for one day. If you work, take a cab,

or walk. But please, children and grown-ups,

 don't ride the bus at all on Monday.

 Please stay off the buses Monday."

HER  COURAGE INSPIRED  OTHERS!!

It rained that day, but the black community

persevered in their boycott. Some rode in carpools,

while others traveled in black-operated cabs

 that charged the same fare as the bus, 10 cents.

Most of the remainder of the 40,000 black

commuters walked, some as far as 20 miles.

 In the end, the boycott lasted for 381 days.

Dozens of public buses stood idle for months,

severely damaging the bus transit company's

 finances, until the law requiring segregation

on public buses was lifted.

SHE ENDURED!!

Through her role in sparking the boycott,

Parks played an important part in

internationalizing the awareness of the

plight of African Americans and the

civil rights struggle.

SHE WAS DETERMINED!!

King wrote in his 1958 book

Stride Toward Freedom

that Parks' arrest was the

precipitating factor,

rather than the cause,

of the protest:

"The cause lay deep in the

record of similar injustices."

 He stated,

"Actually, no one can understand the

action of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes

that eventually the cup of endurance runs over,

and the human personality cries out,

"I can take it no longer."

Rosa Parks in 1964
                               

      SHE TRIUMPED!!

.Parks resided in Detroit until she died at

 the age of 92 on October 24, 2005,

City officials in Montgomery and Detroit

 announced on October 27, 2005 that

the front seats of their city buses would be

 reserved with black ribbons in honor of Parks

 until her funeral.

SHE INFLUENCED OTHERS!!

On October 25, 2005, Parks' coffin was

 flown to Montgomery and taken in a

horse-drawn hearse to the St. Paul

African Methodist Episcopal  church,

where she lay in repose at the altar,

dressed in the uniform of a church deaconess,

A memorial service was held there

the following morning, and one of the speakers,

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,

said that if it had not been for Parks,

she would probably have never

become the Secretary of State.

SHE WAS HONORED!!

In the evening the casket was

transported to Washington, D.C., and

taken, aboard a bus similar to the one

in which she made her protest, to lie

 in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda,

 making her the first woman and second

African American ever to receive this honor.

HER MANY LIFETIME 

ACHIEVEMENTS AND AWARDS

Parks received most of her national accolade

 very late in life, with relatively few awards

and honors being given to her until many decades

after the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

In 1979, the National Association

for the Advancement of Colored People

 awarded Parks the Spingarn Medal

 its highest honor, and she received the

Martin Luther King Jr. Award the next year.

Rosa Parks is pictured here when
she accepted the award
from the NAACPin 1979

She was inducted into the

Michigan Women's Hall of Fame

in 1983 for her achievements

 in civil rights.

In 1990, she was called at the last moment

to be part of the group welcoming Nelson Mandela,

who had just been released from his imprisonment

 in South Africa. Upon spotting her in the reception line,

 Mandela called out her name and, hugging her, said,

"You sustained me while I was in prison all those years."

 In 1992, she received the

 Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award

along with Dr. Benjamin Spock and others

at the Kennedy Library and Museum

in Boston, Massachusetts.

On September 9, 1996,

President Bill Clinton

 presented Parks with the

Presidential Medal of Freedom,

the highest honor given by the

U.S. executive branch.

Rosa Parks pictured here when she

accepted the award from Bill Clinton in 1996

In 1998, she became the first

recipient of the International Freedom

Conductor Award given by the

National Underground

Railroad Freedom Center.

MOTHER OF THE MODERN DAY
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

The next year, Parks was awarded

the Congressional Gold Medal,

the highest award given by the

 U.S. legislative branch and received the

Detroit-Windsor International Freedom

 Festival Freedom Award.

 In 1999, Time magazine

 named Parks one of

the 20 most influential and

 iconic figures of the

twentieth century.

 In 2000, her home state awarded her

the Alabama Academy of Honor,

as well as the first Governor's

 Medal of Honor for Extraordinary Courage.

She was awarded two dozen honorary

 doctorates from universities worldwide,

and was made an honorary member

of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

On December 1, 2000,

the Rosa Parks Library and Museum

on the campus of Troy University

in Montgomery, was dedicated to her.

It is located on the corner where

Parks boarded the famed bus.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed

Parks on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

On October 30, 2005, President George W. Bush

issued a proclamation ordering that all flags on

U.S. public areas both within the country

and abroad be flown at half-staff on the

day of Parks' funeral.

On December1, 2005,  

President George W. Bush

signed Pub.L. 109-116 ,

directing that a statue of Parks

be placed in the United States

Capitol's National Statuary Hall.

In signing the resolution directing

 the Joint Commission on the Library

 to do so, the President stated:

“ By placing her statue in the heart of the

 nation's Capitol, we commemorate

 her work for a more perfect union, and

we commit ourselves to continue to

struggle for justice for every American. ”

***Quotes***

I have learned over the years that when
one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear;
knowing what must be done does away with fear.



Stand for something or
you will fall for anything.
Today's mighty oak is
yesterday's nut that held its ground.



I knew someone had to take the first step
 and I made up my mind not to move.


I do the very best I can to look upon life
with optimism and hope and looking forward
 to a better day, but I don't think there
 is anything such as complete happiness.



I think when you say you're happy,
you have everything that you need
and everything that you want,
and nothing more to wish for.
I haven't reached that stage yet.




I would like to be known as a person who
is concerned about freedom and equality
 and justice and prosperity for all people.

***credits***
The 8 free images are in public domain and can be found at this link:
http://commons.wikipedia.org./wiki/Rosa_Parks