Public domain photo, via Wikimedia Commons

• CIVIL & HUMAN RIGHTS
• Worked as a seamstress during the Depression
• Joined the NAACP in 1943 and served as its secretary, focusing on voting rights, victims of sexual violence, and desegregation
• On December 1, 1955, she REFUSED to give up her seat on a city bus to a white rider, inspiring the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which is considered the FIRST large-scale American demonstration against segregation
• Contrary to popular legend, Parks was not simply an old woman tired from a long day's work -- she was a passionate activist who later in life said that the only thing she was tired of was "giving in"
• Actively involved in the daily organizational needs of the Boycott, including arranging alternate transportation, and coordinating support for those fired from their jobs
• As a result of her actions, she was fired from her job and received death threats for the rest of her life, and her family was forced to move to Detroit to get work, where she continued her activism
• Participated in the historic march from Selma to Montgomery
• Also advocated for the protection and defense of political prisoners
• Cofounded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development, which helps at-risk youth reach their potential
• Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award, and when she died she was the FIRST woman to lie in honor in the Capital Rotunda in Washington, D.C.

The Most Famous, But Not The First

Rosa Parks is the most famous protestor to refuse to give up her seat, but she was far from the first to do so. Claudette Colvin was only fifteen years old when she was arrested for doing the same thing in Alabama nine months earlier, but because she was also pregnant at the time, the NAACP decided against publicizing her case, as questions about her character might distract from the central issue of segregation. Going back even further, Ida B. Wells was forcibly removed from a whites-only train car in Tennessee in 1884. Wells actually successfully sued the railroad company, but her victory was overturned in appeal.

Bibliography: Caldwell, Stella, Clare Hibbert, Andrea Mills, and Rona Skene. 100 Women Who Made History: Remarkable Women Who Shaped Our World. New York: DK Publishing, 2017. Print.
Doyle, Caitlin. Girls Can Do Anything: From Sports to Innovation, Art to Politics, Meet Over 200 Women Who Got There First. Buffalo: Firefly Books, 2016. Print.
Lee, Chana Kai. "Parks, Rosa." The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Vol. 3, Oxford University Press, 2008, 416-417.
Shen, Ann. Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2016. Print.
Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. http://www.rosaparks.org/biography/

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Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development
Troy University’s Rosa Parks Museum

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