Rosa Parks

ROSA PARKS 1913-2005

1. Life on Rosa Parks
2. His actions against racism

Problematic : What did Rosa Parks changed about racism ?

1. Life of Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks is a women who was born the 4th of february 1913 in Alabama, and she died the 24th of october 2005 in Michigan.

She is the oldest daughter of a family of two children. Her parents are a carpenter and a teacher.

After the divorce of her parents, she grew up in her grandparent’s farm, with her mother and brother.

(She also bears the name Rosa in reference to her grand mother Rose, who was a black slave.)

Very committed to ensuring that her daughter receives a good education despite the obstacles to schooling Blacks, her mother Leona educates Rosa at home until her eleven years, and she is to sent to lindustrial School for girls, founded by northern white families for black children, to Montgomery.

She then began her high school studies at the Alabama State Teachers College for negroes, but could not follow them to the end because she had to look after her grandmother and her mother, who got sick.

She then worked as a seamstress and a caregiver.

In December 1932, she married Raymond Parks, a barber activist in the cause of civil rights, member of the Alabama Association for the promotion of people of color.

Her last years are difficult. She is hospitalized after a robbery committed on 30 august 1994, by a man of 28 years old, Joseph Skipper, who stole $53. He is sentenced one year later to 15 years in prison.  But Rosa Parks partially forgives his?? , since she wishes he could to redeem himself and not go to prison.

At the end of her days, she has difficulty to pay her rent and must seek the help of his church, so that owner stops his legal proceedings.

She dies the 24 October 2005 in Michigan, suffering from degenerative dementia since 1 year.

1. The gesture that changed the story

One day, in December 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give way to a white passenger in a bus in Montgomery, while the driver asked for it.

Sitting in the bus, Rosa did not move. The driver shouted again : “Blacks must stand up to give way to whites ! You, up there, get up and leave your place to the gentleman !”

But, refusing to obey, the driver called the police, and she had to pay a 15$ fine.

Rosa Parks continued throughout her life to defend civil rights. She became an icone for the civil rights movement.

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