Happy Birthday Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

by Mister Promo | February 4, 2015

Rosa Parks Bio

Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama to James McCauley, a carpenter, and Leona McCauley, a teacher. At the age of two she moved to her grandparents' farm in Pine Level, Alabama with her mother and younger brother, Sylvester. At the age of 11 she enrolled in the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private school founded by liberal-minded women from the northern United States. The school's philosophy of self-worth was consistent with Leona McCauley's advice to "take advantage of the opportunities, no matter how few they were."

Opportunities were few indeed. "Back then," Mrs. Parks recalled in an interview, "we didn't have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next. I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down." In the same interview, she cited her lifelong acquaintance with fear as the reason for her relative fearlessness in deciding to appeal her conviction during the bus boycott. "I didn't have any special fear," she said.

"It was more of a relief to know that I wasn't alone."

After attending Alabama State Teachers College, the young Rosa settled in Montgomery, with her husband, Raymond Parks. The couple joined the local chapter of the NAACP and worked quietly for many years to improve the lot of African-Americans in the segregated south.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE

Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama, USA as Rosa Louise McCauley. She died on October 24, 2005 in Detroit, Michigan, USA.

She was 92 years old.During her life, she married a barber Raymond Parks in 1932. He was a member of the NAACP.Parks became known as "the first lady of civil rights" when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in 1955. This act instigated the legendary Montgomery Bus Boycott, which helped end racial-segregation in public transit across the country.

PRIOR TO FAMEMontgomery Industrial School, where she attended, was burned down twice by racist arsonists.

USEFUL FACTSThere are two Rosa Parks days in her honor:Her birthday, February 4th,and the day of her arrest, December 1st.If she were still with us she would be 102 years old today.
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