rosa parks autobiography

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Who was Rosa Parks?

Why is rosa parks important, was rosa parks the first black woman to refuse to give up her seat on a segregated bus.

• When did the American civil rights movement start?

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• Blackpast.org - Biography of Rosa Parks
• PBS LearningMedia - Rosa Parks
• The Henry Ford - Rosa Parks: What if I Don’t Move to the Back of the Bus?
• National Women's History Museum - Rosa Parks
• Encyclopedia of Alabama - Rosa Parks
• The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute - Rosa Parks
• Spartacus Educational - Biography of Rosa Parks
• Bill of Rights Institute - Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
• National Archives - An Act of Courage, The Arrest Records of Rosa Parks
• Academy of Achievement - Rosa Parks
• Rosa Parks - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• Rosa Parks - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Rosa Parks was an American civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her seat on a public bus precipitated the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama, which became the spark that ignited the civil rights movement in the United States . She is known as the “mother of the civil rights movement.”

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus for white passengers in 1955, she was arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation ordinances. Her action sparked the Montgomery bus boycott , led by the Montgomery Improvement Association and Martin Luther King, Jr. , that eventually succeeded in achieving desegregation of the city buses. The boycott also helped give rise to the American civil rights movement .

Rosa Parks was not the first Black woman to refuse to give up her seat on a segregated bus, though her story attracted the most attention nationwide. Nine months before Parks, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin had refused to give up her bus seat, as had dozens of other Black women throughout the history of segregated public transit.

What did Rosa Parks write?

In 1992 Rosa Parks published Rosa Parks: My Story , an autobiography written with Jim Haskins that described her role in the American civil rights movement , beyond her refusal to give up her seat on a segregated public bus to white passengers.

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Rosa Parks (born February 4, 1913, Tuskegee , Alabama , U.S.—died October 24, 2005, Detroit , Michigan) was an American civil rights activist whose refusal to relinquish her seat on a public bus precipitated the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama, which became the spark that ignited the civil rights movement in the United States .

Born to parents James McCauley, a skilled stonemason and carpenter, and Leona Edwards McCauley, a teacher, in Tuskegee, Alabama, Rosa Louise McCauley spent much of her childhood and youth ill with chronic tonsillitis . When she was two years old, shortly after the birth of her younger brother, Sylvester, her parents chose to separate. Estranged from their father from then on, the children moved with their mother to live on their maternal grandparents’ farm in Pine Level, Alabama, outside Montgomery. The children’s great-grandfather, a former indentured servant , also lived there; he died when Rosa was six.

For much of her childhood, Rosa was educated at home by her mother, who also worked as a teacher at a nearby school. Rosa helped with chores on the farm and learned to cook and sew. Farm life, though, was less than idyllic . The Ku Klux Klan was a constant threat, as she later recalled, “ burning Negro churches, schools, flogging and killing ” Black families. Rosa’s grandfather would often keep watch at night, rifle in hand, awaiting a mob of violent white men. The house’s windows and doors were boarded shut with the family, frequently joined by Rosa’s widowed aunt and her five children, inside. On nights thought to be especially dangerous, the children would have to go to bed with their clothes on so that they would be ready if the family needed to escape. Sometimes Rosa would choose to stay awake and keep watch with her grandfather.

Rosa and her family experienced racism in less violent ways, too. When Rosa entered school in Pine Level, she had to attend a segregated establishment where one teacher was put in charge of about 50 or 60 schoolchildren. Though white children in the area were bused to their schools, Black children had to walk. Public transportation, drinking fountains, restaurants, and schools were all segregated under Jim Crow laws . At age 11 Rosa entered the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, where Black girls were taught regular school subjects alongside domestic skills. She went on to attend a Black junior high school for 9th grade and a Black teacher’s college for 10th and part of 11th grade. At age 16, however, she was forced to leave school because of an illness in the family, and she began cleaning the houses of white people.

In 1932, at age 19, Rosa married Raymond Parks, a barber and a civil rights activist, who encouraged her to return to high school and earn a diploma. She later made a living as a seamstress. In 1943 Rosa Parks became a member of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and she served as its secretary until 1956.

On December 1, 1955, Parks was riding a crowded Montgomery city bus when the driver, upon noticing that there were white passengers standing in the aisle, asked Parks and other Black passengers to surrender their seats and stand. Three of the passengers left their seats, but Parks refused. She was subsequently arrested and fined $10 for the offense and $4 for court costs, neither of which she paid. Instead, she accepted Montgomery NAACP chapter president E.D. Nixon’s offer to help her appeal the conviction and thus challenge legal segregation in Alabama. Both Parks and Nixon knew that they were opening themselves to harassment and death threats, but they also knew that the case had the potential to spark national outrage. Under the aegis of the Montgomery Improvement Association —led by the young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Martin Luther King, Jr. —a boycott of the municipal bus company began on December 5. African Americans constituted some 70 percent of the ridership, and the absence of their bus fares cut deeply into revenue. The boycott lasted 381 days, and even people outside Montgomery embraced the cause: protests of segregated restaurants, pools, and other public facilities took place all over the United States. On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision declaring Montgomery’s segregated bus seating unconstitutional, and a court order to integrate the buses was served on December 20; the boycott ended the following day. For her role in igniting the successful campaign, Parks became known as the “mother of the civil rights movement.”

Simplifications of Parks’s story claimed that she had refused to give up her bus seat because she was tired rather than because she was protesting unfair treatment. But she was an accomplished activist by the time of her arrest, having worked with the NAACP on other civil rights cases, such as that of the Scottsboro Boys , nine Black youths falsely accused of sexually assaulting two white women. According to Parks’s autobiography, “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 42. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” Parks was not the first Black woman to refuse to give up her bus seat for a white person—15-year-old Claudette Colvin had been arrested for the same offense nine months earlier, and dozens of other Black women had preceded them in the history of segregated public transit . However, as secretary of the local NAACP, and with the Montgomery Improvement Association behind her, Parks had access to resources and publicity that those other women had not had. It was her case that forced the city of Montgomery to desegregate city buses permanently.

In 1957 Parks moved with her husband and mother to Detroit, where from 1965 to 1988 she worked on the staff of Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Jr. She remained active in the NAACP, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference established an annual Rosa Parks Freedom Award in her honour. In 1987 she cofounded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development to provide career training for young people and offer teenagers the opportunity to learn about the history of the civil rights movement. She received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1996) and the Congressional Gold Medal (1999). Her autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story (1992), was written with Jim Haskins.

Though achieving the desegregation of Montgomery’s city buses was an incredible feat, Parks was not satisfied with that victory. She saw that the United States was still failing to respect and protect the lives of Black Americans. Martin Luther King, Jr., who had been brought to national attention by his organization of the Montgomery bus boycott , was assassinated less than a decade after Parks’s case was won. Biographer Kathleen Tracy noted that Parks, in one of her last interviews, would not quite say that she was happy: “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 any such thing as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. 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.”

After Parks died in 2005, her body lay in state in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol , an honour reserved for private citizens who performed a great service for their country. For two days mourners visited her casket and gave thanks for her dedication to civil rights. Parks was the first woman and only the second Black person to receive the distinction.

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ROSA LOUISE PARKS BIOGRAPHY

Rosa Louise Parks was nationally recognized as the “mother of the modern day civil rights movement” in America. Her refusal to surrender her seat to a white male passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, December 1, 1955, triggered a wave of protest December 5, 1955 that reverberated throughout the United States. Her quiet courageous act changed America, its view of black people and redirected the course of history.

Mrs. Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley, February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. She was the first child of James and Leona Edwards McCauley. Her brother, Sylvester McCauley, now deceased, was born August 20, 1915. Later, the family moved to Pine Level, Alabama where Rosa was reared and educated in the rural school. When she completed her education in Pine Level at age eleven, her mother, Leona, enrolled her in Montgomery Industrial School for Girls (Miss White’s School for Girls), a private institution. After finishing Miss White’s School, she went on to Alabama State Teacher’s College High School. She, however, was unable to graduate with her class, because of the illness of her grandmother Rose Edwards and later her death.

As Rosa Parks prepared to return to Alabama State Teacher’s College, her mother also became ill, therefore, she continued to take care of their home and care for her mother while her brother, Sylvester, worked outside of the home. She received her high school diploma in 1934, after her marriage to Raymond Parks, December 18, 1932. Raymond, now deceased was born in Wedowee, Alabama, Randolph County, February 12, 1903, received little formal education due to racial segregation. He was a self-educated person with the assistance of his mother, Geri Parks. His immaculate dress and his thorough knowledge of domestic affairs and current events made most think he was college educated. He supported and encouraged Rosa’s desire to complete her formal education.

Mr. Parks was an early activist in the effort to free the “Scottsboro Boys,” a celebrated case in the 1930′s. Together, Raymond and Rosa worked in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP’s) programs. He was an active member and she served as secretary and later youth leader of the local branch. At the time of her arrest, she was preparing for a major youth conference.

After the arrest of Rosa Parks, black people of Montgomery and sympathizers of other races organized and promoted a boycott of the city bus line that lasted 381 days. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was appointed the spokesperson for the Bus Boycott and taught nonviolence to all participants. Contingent with the protest in Montgomery, others took shape throughout the south and the country. They took form as sit-ins, eat-ins, swim-ins, and similar causes. Thousands of courageous people joined the “protest” to demand equal rights for all people.

Mrs. Parks moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1957. In 1964 she became a deaconess in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME).

Congressman John Conyers First Congressional District of Michigan employed Mrs. Parks, from 1965 to 1988. In February, 1987, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development with Ms. Elaine Eason Steele in honor of her husband, Raymond (1903-1977). The purpose is to motivate and direct youth not targeted by other programs to achieve their highest potential. Rosa Parks sees the energy of young people as a real force for change. It is among her most treasured themes of human priorities as she speaks to young people of all ages at schools, colleges, and national organizations around the world.

The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development’s “Pathways to Freedom program, traces the underground railroad into the civil rights movement and beyond. Youth, ages 11 through 17, meet and talk with Mrs. Parks and other national leaders as they participate in educational and historical research throughout the world. They journey primarily by bus as “freedom riders” did in the 1960′s,the theme: “Where have we been? Where are we going?”

As a role model for youth she was stimulated by their enthusiasm to learn as much about her life as possible. A modest person, she always encourages them to research the lives of other contributors to world peace. The Institute and The Rosa Parks Legacy are her legacies to people of good will.

Mrs. Parks received more than forty-three honorary doctorate degrees, including one from SOKA UNIVERSITY, Tokyo Japan, hundreds of plaques, certificates, citations, awards and keys to many cities. Among them are the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal, the UAW’s Social Justice Award, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Non – Violent Peace Prize and the ROSA PARKS PEACE PRIZE in 1994, Stockholm Sweden, to name a few. In September 1996 President William J. Clinton, the forty second President of the United States of America gave Mrs. Parks the MEDAL OF FREEDOM, the highest award given to a civilian citizen.

Published Act no.28 of 1997 designated the first Monday following February 4, as Mrs Rosa Parks’ Day in the state of Michigan, her home state. She is the first living person to be honored with a holiday.

She was voted by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most Influential people of the 20th century. A Museum and Library is being built in her honor, in Montgomery, AL and will open in the fall of the year 2000 (ground breaking April 21, 1998). On September 2, 1998 The Rosa L. Parks Learning Center was dedicated at Botsford Commons, a senior community in Michigan. Through the use of computer technology, youth will mentor seniors on the use of computers. (Mrs. Parks was a member of the first graduating class on November 24, 1998). On September 26, 1998 Mrs. Parks was the recipient of the first International Freedom Conductor’s Award by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

She attended her first “State of the Union Address” in January 1999. Mrs. Parks received a unanimous bipartisan standing ovation when President William Jefferson Clinton acknowledged her. Representative Julia Carson of Indianapolis, Indiana introduced H. R. Bill 573 on February 4, 1999, which would award Mrs. Rosa Parks the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor if it passed the House of Representatives and the Senate by a majority. The bill was passed unanimously in the Senate on April 19, and with one descenting vote in the House of Representatives on April 20. President Clinton signed it into law on May 3, 1999. Mrs. Parks was one of only 250 individuals at the time, including the American Red Cross to receive this honor. President George Washington was the first to receive the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor. President Nelson Mandela is also listed among the select few of world leaders who have received the medal.

In the winter of 2000 Mrs. Parks met Pope John-Paul II in St. Louis, MO and read a statement to him asking for racial healing. She received the NAACP Image Award for Best Supporting Actress in the Television series, TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, “Black like Monica”. Troy State University at Montgomery opened The Rosa Parks Library and Museum on the site where Mrs. Parks was arrested December 1, 1955. It opened on the 45th Anniversary of her arrest and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

“The Rosa Parks Story” was filmed in Montgomery, Alabama May 2001, an aired February 24, 2002 on the CBS television network. Mrs. Parks continues to receive numerous awards including the very first Lifetime Achievement Award ever given by The Institute for Research on Women & Gender, Stanford University. She received the Gandhi, King, Ikeda award for peace and on October 29, 2003 Mrs. Parks was an International Institute Heritage Hall of fame honoree. On February 4, 2004 Mrs. Parks 91st birthday was celebrated at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. On December 21, 2004 the 49th Anniversary of the Mrs. Parks’ arrest was commemorated with a Civil Rights and Hip-Hop Forum at the Franklin Settlement in Detroit, Michigan.

On February 4, 2005 Mrs. Parks’ 92nd birthday was celebrate at Calvary Baptist Church in Detroit, MI. Students from the Detroit Public Schools did “Willing to be Arrested,” a reenactment of Mrs. Parks arrest. February 6, 2005 Mrs. Parks received the first annual Cardinal Dearden Peace Award at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Detroit, MI. February 19 – 20, composer Hannibal Lokumbe premiered an original symphony “Dear Mrs. Parks.” Mr. Lokumbe did this original work as part of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s ” Classical Roots Series.” The beginning of many events that will commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Mrs. Parks’ arrest December 1, 1955.

Mrs. Parks has written four books, Rosa Parks: My Story: by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins, Quiet Strength by Rosa Parks with Gregory J. Reed, Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue With Today’s Youth by Rosa Parks with Gregory J, Reed, this book received the NAACP’s Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, (Children’s) in 1996 and her latest book, I AM ROSA PARKS by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins, for preschoolers.

A quiet exemplification of courage, dignity, and determination; Rosa Parks was a symbol to all to remain free. Rosa Parks made her peaceful transition October 24, 2005.

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Fifty years after she made history by refusing to give up her seat on a bus, Rosa Parks at last gets the major biography she deserves. The eminent historian Douglas Brinkley follows this thoughtful and devout woman from her childhood in Jim Crow Alabama through her early involvement in the NAACP to her epochal moment of courage and her afterlife as a beloved (and resented) icon of the civil rights movement. Well researched and written with sympathy and keen insight, the result is a moving, revelatory portrait of an American heroine and her tumultuous times.

Rosa Parks, an African American seamstress in 1955 Alabama, had no idea she was changing history when, work-weary, she refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus. Now she is immortalized for the defiance that sent her to jail and triggered a bus boycott that catapulted Martin Luther King, Jr., into the national spotlight. Who was she, before and after her historic act, and how did she sound the death knell for Jim Crow?

Historian Douglas Brinkley, whose “vigorous language” and “marvelous portraits” (Stephen Ambrose) have made him an acclaimed author, brings midcentury America alive in this brilliant examination of a celebrated heroine in the context of her life and tumultuous times. Here in Rosa Parks are the quiet dignity, hope, courage, and humor that have made this twentieth-century everywoman a living legend. This book is an eye-opener for students of history, politics, the black experience, and human nature.

October 25th, 2005

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Praise for Rosa Parks: A Life:

“In the second volume to date of the popular Penguin Lives series to be devoted to a woman (remarkably, only four of the projected 26 subjects will be female), historian Brinkley shreds several key myths surrounding Rosa Parks, the African-American woman who became “the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement” at the age of 42, when she boldly defied Jim Crow laws by refusing to give up her seat to a white rider on a segregated bus in 1955. The act catalyzed the historic 381-day Montgomery bus boycott and stirred the nation’s conscience. Yet Parks has a more complex personality than is suggested by her shy, soft-spoken public persona, Brinkley reveals. Despite a humble, fatherless childhood in rural Alabama, she quickly distinguished herself as a tireless worker with the local NAACP, devoting her energies to area youth groups, recording the problems of victims of hate crimes and participating in the organization’s major state conferences. Brinkley ( The Unfinished Presidency , etc.) pinpoints the origins of Parks’s strength and strong social commitment as he details the legalized segregation that tainted every aspect of Southern life. His short, compelling scenes rivet the reader, although some merely expand on previously disclosed events, such as the wave of jealousy and backbiting among Parks’s peers, her resurgence in Detroit politics as an aide to Representative John Conyers and the savage beating and robbery that almost took her life in 1994. Like several books in this series, Brinkley’s tribute to Parks succeeds not because of an abundance of fresh revelations but because of its wealth of insight and rich portraiture.”  — Publisher’s Weekly

“[A] precise history of the woman and the incident that would crown her the mother of the civil rights movement.”  — USA Today

“A timely update of the historical record, told as an inspiring and unabashedly dramatic story of an American heroine.”  — The Seattle Times

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Rosa Parks: A Biography (Greenwood Biographies) Hardcover – Illustrated, July 6, 2011

This book offers a revealing look at Rosa Parks, whose role as an activist and struggle with racism began long before her historic 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, bus ride. Rosa Parks: A Biography captures the story of this remarkable woman like no other biography of her before it. It examines the entire scope of Rosa Parks's life, from her birth in 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama to her 1943 enrollment in the Montgomery NAACP to the dramatic events of the 1960s, and her continuing work up to her death in 2005. Each chapter provides an exploration of a period in Parks's life, portraying the people, places, and events that shaped and were shaped by her. Readers will see in Parks, not an inadvertent tripwire of history, but a woman whose lifelong struggle against racism led her inexorably to a moment where she took a courageous stand by sitting down and not moving.

• Part of series Greenwood Biographies
• Print length 216 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Greenwood
• Publication date July 6, 2011
• Dimensions 6.14 x 0.56 x 9.21 inches
• ISBN-10 0313352178
• ISBN-13 978-0313352171
• See all details

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About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Greenwood; Illustrated edition (July 6, 2011)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 216 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0313352178
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0313352171
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.14 x 0.56 x 9.21 inches
• #4,233 in Civil Rights & Liberties (Books)
• #7,759 in Black & African American Biographies
• #27,215 in Women's Biographies

About the author

Joyce ann hanson.

Joyce Hanson received her Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut in 1997. In 1996, she won a Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Grant in Women's Studies for her dissertation work, which was published by The University of Missouri Press in Spring 2003 under the title Mary McLeod Bethune and Black Women's Political Activism. Professor Hanson has recently completed a biography of Rosa Parks as well as history of Community Hospital of San Bernardino with co-authors Suzie Earp and Erin Shanks. Professor Hanson joined the history department at California State University, San Bernardino in 1998 where she teaches African American History, Women's History, and 20th Century U.S. History classes.

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By: History.com Editors

Updated: February 20, 2024 | Original: November 9, 2009

Rosa Parks (1913—2005) helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott . Led by a young Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. , the boycott lasted more than a year—during which Parks not coincidentally lost her job—and ended only when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional. Over the next half-century, Parks became a nationally recognized symbol of dignity and strength in the struggle to end entrenched racial segregation .

Rosa Parks’ Early Life

Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama , on February 4, 1913. She moved with her parents, James and Leona McCauley, to Pine Level, Alabama, at age 2 to reside with Leona’s parents. Her brother, Sylvester, was born in 1915, and shortly after that her parents separated.

Did you know? When Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in 1955, it wasn’t the first time she’d clashed with driver James Blake. Parks stepped onto his very crowded bus on a chilly day 12 years earlier, paid her fare at the front, then resisted the rule in place for Black people to disembark and re-enter through the back door. She stood her ground until Blake pulled her coat sleeve, enraged, to demand her cooperation. Parks left the bus rather than give in.

Rosa’s mother was a teacher, and the family valued education. Rosa moved to Montgomery, Alabama, at age 11 and eventually attended high school there, a laboratory school at the Alabama State Teachers’ College for Negroes. She left at 16, early in 11th grade, because she needed to care for her dying grandmother and, shortly thereafter, her chronically ill mother. In 1932, at 19, she married Raymond Parks, a self-educated man 10 years her senior who worked as a barber and was a long-time member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ). He supported Rosa in her efforts to earn her high-school diploma, which she ultimately did the following year.

Rosa Parks: Roots of Activism

Raymond and Rosa, who worked as a seamstress, became respected members of Montgomery’s large African American community. Co-existing with white people in a city governed by “ Jim Crow ” (segregation) laws, however, was fraught with daily frustrations: Black people could attend only certain (inferior) schools, could drink only from specified water fountains and could borrow books only from the “Black” library, among other restrictions.

Although Raymond had previously discouraged her out of fear for her safety, in December 1943, Rosa also joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and became chapter secretary . She worked closely with chapter president Edgar Daniel (E.D.) Nixon. Nixon was a railroad porter known in the city as an advocate for Black people who wanted to register to vote, and also as president of the local branch of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union .

December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks Is Arrested

On Thursday, December 1, 1955, the 42-year-old Rosa Parks was commuting home from a long day of work at the Montgomery Fair department store by bus. Black residents of Montgomery often avoided municipal buses if possible because they found the Negroes-in-back policy so demeaning. Nonetheless, 70 percent or more riders on a typical day were Black, and on this day Rosa Parks was one of them.

Segregation was written into law; the front of a Montgomery bus was reserved for white citizens, and the seats behind them for Black citizens. However, it was only by custom that bus drivers had the authority to ask a Black person to give up a seat for a white rider. There were contradictory Montgomery laws on the books: One said segregation must be enforced, but another, largely ignored, said no person (white or Black) could be asked to give up a seat even if there were no other seat on the bus available.

Nonetheless, at one point on the route, a white man had no seat because all the seats in the designated “white” section were taken. So the driver told the riders in the four seats of the first row of the “colored” section to stand, in effect adding another row to the “white” section. The three others obeyed. Parks did not.

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired,” wrote Parks in her autobiography, “but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically… No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Eventually, two police officers approached the stopped bus, assessed the situation and placed Parks in custody.

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Although Parks used her one phone call to contact her husband, word of her arrest had spread quickly and E.D. Nixon was there when Parks was released on bail later that evening. Nixon had hoped for years to find a courageous Black person of unquestioned honesty and integrity to become the plaintiff in a case that might become the test of the validity of segregation laws. Sitting in Parks’ home, Nixon convinced Parks—and her husband and mother—that Parks was that plaintiff. Another idea arose as well: The Black population of Montgomery would boycott the buses on the day of Parks’ trial, Monday, December 5. By midnight, 35,000 flyers were being mimeographed to be sent home with Black schoolchildren, informing their parents of the planned boycott.

On December 5, Parks was found guilty of violating segregation laws, given a suspended sentence and fined $10 plus $4 in court costs. Meanwhile, Black participation in the boycott was much larger than even optimists in the community had anticipated. Nixon and some ministers decided to take advantage of the momentum, forming the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to manage the boycott, and they elected Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.–new to Montgomery and just 26 years old—as the MIA’s president.

As appeals and related lawsuits wended their way through the courts, all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court , the Montgomery Bus Boycott engendered anger in much of Montgomery’s white population as well as some violence, and Nixon’s and Dr. King’s homes were bombed . The violence didn’t deter the boycotters or their leaders, however, and the drama in Montgomery continued to gain attention from the national and international press.

On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional; the boycott ended December 20, a day after the Court’s written order arrived in Montgomery. Parks—who had lost her job and experienced harassment all year—became known as “the mother of the civil rights movement.”

Rosa Parks's Life After the Boycott

Facing continued harassment and threats in the wake of the boycott, Parks, along with her husband and mother, eventually decided to move to Detroit, where Parks’ brother resided. Parks became an administrative aide in the Detroit office of Congressman John Conyers Jr. in 1965, a post she held until her 1988 retirement. Her husband, brother and mother all died of cancer between 1977 and 1979. In 1987, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, to serve Detroit’s youth.

In the years following her retirement, she traveled to lend her support to civil-rights events and causes and wrote an autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story . In 1999, Parks was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor the United States bestows on a civilian. (Other recipients have included George Washington , Thomas Edison , Betty Ford and Mother Teresa.) When she died at age 92 on October 24, 2005, she became the first woman in the nation’s history to lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol.

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On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of going to the back of the bus, which was designated for African Americans, she sat in the front. When the bus started to fill up with white passengers, the bus driver asked Parks to move. She refused. Her resistance set in motion one of the largest social movements in history, the Montgomery Bus Boycott .

Rosa Louise McCauley was born on February 4th, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. As a child, she went to an industrial school for girls and later enrolled at Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes (present-day Alabama State University). Unfortunately, Parks was forced to withdraw after her grandmother became ill. Growing up in the segregated South, Parks was frequently confronted with racial discrimination and violence. She became active in the Civil Rights Movement at a young age.

Parks married a local barber by the name of Raymond Parks when she was 19. He was actively fighting to end racial injustice. Together the couple worked with many social justice organizations. Eventually, Rosa was elected secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). 

By the time Parks boarded the bus in 1955, she was an established organizer and leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. Parks not only showed active resistance by refusing to move she also helped organize and plan the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Many have tried to diminish Parks’ role in the boycott by depicting her as a seamstress who simply did not want to move because she was tired. Parks denied the claim and years later revealed her true motivation:

“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.”

Parks courageous act and the subsequent Montgomery Bus Boycott led to the integration of public transportation in Montgomery. Her actions were not without consequence. She was jailed for refusing to give up her seat and lost her job for participating in the boycott.

After the boycott, Parks and her husband moved to Hampton, Virginia and later permanently settled in Detroit, Michigan. Parks work proved to be invaluable in Detroit’s Civil Rights Movement. She was an active member of several organizations which worked to end inequality in the city. By 1980, after consistently giving to the movement both financially and physically Parks, now widowed, suffered from financial and health troubles. After almost being evicted from her home, local community members and churches came together to support Parks. On October 24th, 2005, at the age of 92, she died of natural causes leaving behind a rich legacy of resistance against racial discrimination and injustice.

• Parks, Rosa. Rosa Parks: My Story. New York: Puffin Books, 1999.
• Theoharis, Jeanne. The Rebellious Life of Mrs.Rosa Parks. New York: Beacon Press, 2014.
• “An Act of Courage, The Arrest Records of Rosa Parks” National Archives, Accessed 23 March 2017. https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/rosa-parks
• PHOTO: Library of Congress

MLA – Norwood, Arlisha. "Rosa Parks." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2017. Date accessed.

Chicago- Norwood, Arlisha. "Rosa Parks." National Women's History Museum. 2017. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/rosa-parks.

• Robinson, Jo Ann. Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robison. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987.
• “Rosa Parks: How I Fought for Civil Rights.” Scholastic Teacher’s Activity Guide. Accessed 23 March 2017.
• “What If: I Don’t Move to the Back of The Bus?” The Henry Ford Foundation : Stories of Innovation, Accessed March 23 2017.

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Two policemen came on the bus, and one asked me if the driver had told me to stand. He wanted to know why I didn’t stand, and I told him I didn’t think I should have to stand up. I asked him, why did they push us around? He said, I don’t know, but the law is the law and you are under arrest.

Most historians date the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the United States to December 1, 1955. That was the day when an unknown seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. This brave woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested and fined for violating a city ordinance, but her lonely act of defiance began a movement that ended legal segregation in America, and made her an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere.

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. 

“I worked on numerous cases with the NAACP,” Mrs. Parks recalled, “but we did not get the publicity. There were cases of flogging, peonage, murder, and rape. We didn’t seem to have too many successes. It was more a matter of trying to challenge the powers that be, and to let it be known that we did not wish to continue being second-class citizens.”

The bus incident led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by the young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The association called for a boycott of the city-owned bus company. The boycott lasted 381 days and brought Mrs. Parks, Dr. King, and their cause to the attention of the world. A Supreme Court decision struck down the Montgomery ordinance under which Mrs. Parks had been fined, and outlawed racial segregation on public transportation.

In 1957, Mrs. Parks and her husband moved to Detroit, Michigan, where Mrs. Parks served on the staff of U.S. Representative John Conyers. The Southern Christian Leadership Council established an annual Rosa Parks Freedom Award in her honor.

After the death of her husband in 1977, Mrs. Parks founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. The Institute sponsors an annual summer program for teenagers called Pathways to Freedom. The young people tour the country in buses, under adult supervision, learning the history of their country and of the civil rights movement. President Clinton presented Rosa Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. She received a Congressional Gold Medal in 1999.

When asked if she was happy living in retirement, Rosa Parks replied, “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 any such thing as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. 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.”

Mrs. Parks spent her last years living quietly in Detroit, where she died in 2005 at the age of 92. After her death, her casket was placed in the rotunda of the United States Capitol for two days, so the nation could pay its respects to the woman whose courage had changed the lives of so many. She was the first woman and the second African American to lie in honor at the Capitol, a distinction usually reserved for Presidents of the United States.

View and listen to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered on the steps of Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963.

Member of the American Academy of Achievement, poet and best-selling author, Maya Angelou  shares her interpretation of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Rosa Parks, the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement” was one of the most important citizens of the 20th century. Mrs. Parks was a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama when, in December of 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. The bus driver had her arrested. She was tried and convicted of violating a local ordinance.

Her act sparked a citywide boycott of the bus system by blacks that lasted more than a year. The boycott raised an unknown clergyman named Martin Luther King, Jr., to national prominence and resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation on city buses. Over the next four decades, she helped make her fellow Americans aware of the history of the civil rights struggle. This pioneer in the struggle for racial equality was the recipient of innumerable honors, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her example remains an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere.

In 1955, you refused to give up your seat to a white passenger on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Your act inspired the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the event historians call the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement. Could you tell us exactly what happened that day?

Rosa Parks: I was arrested on December 1, 1955 for refusing to stand up on the orders of the bus driver, after the white seats had been occupied in the front. And of course, I was not in the front of the bus as many people have written and spoken that I was — that I got on the bus and took the front seat, but I did not. I took a seat that was just back of where the white people were sitting, in fact, the last seat. A man was next to the window, and I took an aisle seat and there were two women across. We went on undisturbed until about the second or third stop when some white people boarded the bus and left one man standing. And when the driver noticed him standing, he told us to stand up and let him have those seats. He referred to them as front seats. And when the other three people — after some hesitancy — stood up, he wanted to know if I was going to stand up, and I told him I was not. And he told me he would have me arrested. And I told him he may do that. And of course, he did.   Two policemen came on the bus and one asked me if the driver had told me to stand and I said, “Yes.” And he wanted to know why I didn’t stand, and I told him I didn’t think I should have to stand up. And then I asked him, why did they push us around? And he said, and I quote him, “I don’t know, but the law is the law and you are under arrest.”  And with that, I got off the bus, under arrest.

Did they take you down to the police station?

Rosa Parks: Yes. A policeman wanted the driver to swear out a warrant, if he was willing, and he told him that he would sign a warrant when he finished his trip and delivered his passengers, and he would come straight down to the City Hall to sign a warrant against me.

Did he do that?

Rosa Parks: Yes, he did.

Did the public response begin immediately?

Rosa Parks: Actually, it began as soon as it was announced.

It was put in the paper that I had been arrested. Mr. E.D. Nixon was the legal redress chairman of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP, and he made a number of calls during the night, called a number of ministers. I was arrested on a Thursday evening, and on Friday evening is when they had the meeting at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King was the pastor. A number of citizens came, and I told them the story and from then on, it became news about my being arrested. My trial was December 5, when they found me guilty. The lawyers Fred Gray and Charles Langford, who represented me, filed an appeal and, of course, I didn’t pay any fine. We set a meeting at the Holt Street Baptist Church on the evening of December 5th, because December 5th was the day the people stayed off in large numbers and did not ride the bus.   In fact, most of the buses, I think all of them were just about empty with the exception of maybe very, very few people.   When they found out that one day’s protest had kept people off the bus, it came to a vote and unanimously, it was decided that they would not ride the buses anymore until changes for the better were made.

When you refused to stand up, did you have a sense of anger at having to do it?

Rosa Parks: I don’t remember feeling that anger, but I did feel determined to take this as an opportunity to let it be known that I did not want to be treated in that manner and that people have endured it far too long. However, I did not have at the moment of my arrest any idea of how the people would react. And since they reacted favorably, I was willing to go with that. We formed what was known as the Montgomery Improvement Association, on the afternoon of December 5th. Dr. Martin Luther King became very prominent in this movement, so he was chosen as a spokesman and the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association.

What are your thoughts when you look back on that time in your life. Any regrets?

As I look back on those days, it’s just like a dream. The only thing that bothered me was that we waited so long to make this protest and to let it be known wherever we go that all of us should be free and equal and have all opportunities that others should have.

What personal characteristics do you think are most important to accomplish something?

Rosa Parks: I think it’s important to believe in yourself and when you feel like you have the right idea, to stay with it. And of course, it all depends upon the cooperation of the people around. People were very cooperative in getting off the buses. And from that, of course, we went on to other things. I, along with Mrs. Field, who was here with me, organized the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. Raymond, my husband—he is now deceased—was another person who inspired me, because he believed in freedom and equality himself.

You were married during the bus incident.

Rosa Parks: Yes, I was.

How old were you?

Rosa Parks: When I was arrested, I was 42 years old. There were so many needs for us to continue to work for freedom, because I didn’t think that we should have to be treated in the way we were, just for the sake of white supremacy, because it was designed to make them feel superior, and us feel inferior. That was the whole plan of racially enforced segregation.

What was it like in Montgomery when you were growing up?

Rosa Parks: Back in Montgomery during my growing up there, it was completely legally enforced racial segregation, and of course, I struggled against it for a long time.   I felt that it was not right to be deprived of freedom when we were living in the Home of the Brave and Land of the Free.   Of course, when I refused to stand up, on the orders of the bus driver, for a white passenger to take the seat, and I was not sitting in the front of the bus, as so many people have said, and neither was my feet hurting, as many people have said. But I made up my mind that I would not give in any longer to legally-imposed racial segregation and of course my arrest brought about the protests for more than a year.   And in doing so, Dr. Martin Luther King became prominent because he was the leader of our protests along with many other people.   And I’m very glad that this experience I had then brought about a movement that triggered across the United States and in other places.

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Rosa Parks occupies an iconic status in the civil rights movement after she refused to vacate a seat on a bus in favor of a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1955, Parks rejected a bus driver's order to leave a row of four seats in the "colored" section once the white section had filled up and move to the back of the bus.

Her defiance sparked a successful boycott of buses in Montgomery a few days later. Residents refused to board the city's buses. Instead they carpooled, rode in Black-owned cabs, or walked, some as far as 20 miles. The boycott dealt a severe blow to the bus company's profits as dozens of public buses stood idle for months. The boycott was led by a newcomer to Montgomery named Martin Luther King, Jr.

Intentional Act

At the time, Parks led the youth division at the Montgomery branch of NAACP. She said her anger over the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till and the failure to bring his killers to justice inspired her to make her historic stand. Four days before the incident, Parks attended a meeting where she learned of the acquittal of Till's murderers.

In her autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story (1992), Parks declares her defiance was an intentional act: "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 42. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

As a result of her defiance, Parks was arrested and found guilty of disorderly conduct. NAACP joined her appeal, a case that languished in the Alabama court system. Segregation on public buses eventually ended in 1956 after a Supreme Court ruling declared it unconstitutional in Browder v. Gayle . Parks was not included as a plaintiff in the decision since her case was still pending in the state court.

"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 42. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in." — Rosa Parks

Joining the Fight in Detroit

In addition to her arrest, Parks lost her job as a seamstress at a local department store. Her husband Raymond lost his job as a barber at a local air force base after his boss forbade him to talk about the legal case. Parks and her husband left Montgomery in 1957 to find work, first traveling to Virginia and later to Detroit, Michigan.

Parks supported the militant Black power movement, whose leaders disagreed with the methods of the nonviolent movement represented by Martin Luther King. Her break with other Montgomery leaders over the future of the civil rights struggle contributed to her departure from the Southern city.

Parks was struck by the similarity in treatment of African Americans in Detroit, finding that schools and housing were just as segregated as they were in the South. She joined the movement for fair housing and lent her support to local candidate John Conyers in his bid for Congress.

After he was elected in 1965, Conyers repaid the favor by employing Parks as his secretary in his Detroit office, a position she held until her retirement in 1988. In the role, Parks worked with constituents on issues such as job discrimination, education, and affordable housing.

Parks remained active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and helped investigate the killing of three Black teenagers in a 1967 race riot in Detroit.

Death and legacy

Over the course of her life, Parks received many honors, including NAACP's Springarn Medal in 1979, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999. After Parks died in Detroit in 2005 at the age of 92, she became the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C.

California, Missouri, Ohio, and Oregon commemorate Rosa Parks Day every year, and highways in Missouri, Michigan, and Pennsylvania bear her name.

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Biography of Rosa Parks, Civil Rights Pioneer

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Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913–October 24, 2005) was a civil rights activist in Alabama when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white person: her case touched off the Montgomery Bus Boycott and was a significant milestone in forcing the Supreme Court to end segregation. She once said, "When people made up their minds that they wanted to be free and took action, then there was change. But they couldn't rest on just that change. It has to continue." Parks' words encapsulate her work as a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement .

• Known For : Civil rights activist in the American south of 1950s and 1960s
• Born : February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama
• Parents : James and Leona Edwards McCauley 
• Died : October 24, 2005 in Detroit, Michigan
• Education : Alabama State Teacher's College for Negroes
• Spouse : Raymond Parks
• Children : None

Rosa Louise McCauley was born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her mother Leona Edwards was a teacher and her father James McCauley was a carpenter.

Early in Parks' childhood, she moved to Pine Level, right outside the state capital of Montgomery. Parks was a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and attended primary school until the age of 11.

Parks walked to school every day and realized the disparity between Black and white children. In her biography, Parks recalled, "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 white world."

Education and Family

Parks continued her education at the Alabama State Teacher's College for Negroes for Secondary Education. However, after a few semesters, Parks returned home to care for her ailing mother and grandmother.

In 1932, Parks married Raymond Parks, a barber and a member of the NAACP. Parks became involved in the NAACP through her husband, helping to raise money for the Scottsboro Boys . In the daytime, Parks worked as a maid and hospital aide before finally receiving her high school diploma in 1933.

Civil Rights Movement

In 1943, Parks became even more involved in the Civil Rights Movement and was elected secretary of the NAACP. Of this experience, Parks said, "I was the only woman there, and they needed a secretary, and I was too timid to say no." The following year, Parks used her role as secretary to research the gang rape of Recy Taylor. As a result, other local activist established the "Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor." Through the help of newspapers such as The Chicago Defender, the incident received national attention.

While working for a liberal white couple, Parks was encouraged to attend the Highlander Folk School, a center for activism in worker's rights and social equality.

Following her education at this school, Parks attended a meeting in Montgomery address the Emmitt Till case. At the end of the meeting, it was decided that African-Americans needed to do more to fight for their rights.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

It was a few weeks before Christmas in 1955 when Rosa Parks boarded a bus after working as a seamstress. Taking a seat in the "colored" section of the bus, Parks was asked by a white man to get up and move so that he could sit. Parks refused. As a result, the police were called and Parks was arrested.

Parks' refusal to move her seat ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott , a protest that lasted 381 days and pushed Martin Luther King Jr. into the national spotlight. Throughout the boycott, King referred to Parks as "the great fuse that led to the modern stride toward freedom."

Parks was not the first woman to refuse to give up her seat on a public bus. In 1945, Irene Morgan was arrested for the same act. And several months before Parks, Sarah Louise Keys and Claudette Covin committed the same transgression. However, NAACP leaders argued that Parks—with her long history as a local activist—would be able to see a court challenge through. As a result, Parks was considered an iconic figure in the Civil Rights Movement and the fight against racism and segregation in the United States.

Following the Boycott

Although Parks' courage allowed her to become a symbol of the growing movement, she and her husband suffered severely. Park was fired from her job at the local department store. No longer feeling safe in Montgomery, the Parks moved to Detroit as part of the Great Migration .

While living in Detroit, Parks served as secretary for U.S. Representative John Conyers from 1965 to 1969.

Following her retirement from Conyers' office, Parks devoted her time to documenting and continuing to support the civil rights work she had begun in the 1950s. In 1979, Parks received the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. In 1987, the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development was incorporated by Parks and long-time friend Elaine Eason Steele, to teach, support, and encourage leadership and civil rights in young people.

She wrote two books: "Rosa Parks: My Story," in 1992, and "Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation," in 1994. A collection of her letters was published in 1996, called "Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue With Today's Youth." She was the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (in 1996, from President Bill Clinton), the Congressional Gold Medal (in 1999), and many other accolades.

In 2000, the Rosa Parks Museum and Library at Troy State University in Montgomery was opened near where she had been arrested. 

Parks died of natural causes at the age of 92 in her home in Detroit, Michigan on October 24, 2005. She was the first woman and second non-U.S. government official to lie in honor at the Capitol Rotunda.

• " Rosa Parks, civil rights pioneer, dies. " The New York Times , October 25, 2005. 
• Rowbotham, Sheila. " Rosa Parks: Activist whose refusal to give up her bus seat ignited the US civil rights movement ." The Guardian , October 25, 2005.
• Sullivan, Patricia. " Bus Ride Shook a Nation's Conscience ." Washington Post, October 25, 2005. 
• Theoharis, Jeanne. "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks." Boston: Beacon Press, 2013.
• Quotes From Civil Rights Icon Rosa Parks
• How Rosa Parks Helped Spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Montgomery Bus Boycott Timeline
• Organizations of the Civil Rights Movement
• Civil Rights Movement Timeline From 1951 to 1959
• Biography of Virginia Durr
• Browder v. Gayle: Court Case, Arguments, Impact
• 10 of the Most Important Black Women in U.S. History
• Ralph Abernathy: Advisor and Confidante to Martin Luther King Jr.
• A Profile of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
• Important Cities in Black History
• The Early History of the NAACP: A Timeline
• Congress of Racial Equality: History and Impact on Civil Rights
• Black History from 1950–1959
• The Black Struggle for Freedom
• Black History and Women's Timeline: 1950–1959

ROSA PARKS' BIOGRAPHY

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ROSA PARKS AUTOGRAPH (1st ED. AUTOBIOGRAPHY)

This is a 1st edition copy (with dust jacket) of Rosa Park’s autobiography My Story .  Book is in mint condition ; dust jacket is in great condition, with almost non-existent wear at top.

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake’s order that she give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled. Parks was not the first person to resist bus segregation. Others had taken similar steps, including Irene Morgan in 1946, Sarah Louise Keys in 1955, and the members of the Browder v. Gayle lawsuit (Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith) who were arrested in Montgomery months before Parks. NAACP organizers believed that Parks was the best candidate for seeing through a court challenge after her arrest for civil disobedience in violating Alabama segregation laws, although eventually her case became bogged down in the state courts while the Browder v. Gayle case succeeded.

Parks’ act of defiance and the Montgomery Bus Boycott became important symbols of the modern Civil Rights Movement. She became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation . She organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including Edgar Nixon, president of the local chapter of the NAACP; and Martin Luther King, Jr., a new minister in town who gained national prominence in the civil rights movement.

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Home > New Materials > Book Lists > Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

Rosa Parks is considered by many to be the mother of the civil rights movement. Her arrest in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man inspired a yearlong boycott of buses in Montgomery, Alabama. Her activism has often been downplayed by accounts portraying her as a seamstress who didn’t get up because she was tired. However, at the time of her arrest, Rosa Parks had been secretary of the NAACP branch in Montgomery for twelve years where she worked on voter registration and interviewed victims of race-based crimes. Documents concerning her arrest became part of a court case that resulted in a ruling—upheld by the Supreme Court—that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional. In 1999, Rosa Parks was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor.

This minibibliograpy lists titles from the NLS collection about this historic figure. Digital braille and talking book titles can be downloaded from the NLS BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download) service . Contact your local cooperating library to register for BARD. Registered users may also download audio titles on iOS and Android devices using the BARD Mobile app. Braille titles may be downloaded using the app on a device linked by Bluetooth to a refreshable braille display. To find your local cooperating library, go to www.loc.gov/nls/findyourlibrary or call toll-free 888-NLS-READ (888-657-7323).

Autobiography for Children

Short pieces, oral history, rosa parks and the civil rights movement, by rosa parks, i am rosa parks by rosa parks with jim haskins.

Famous activist describes her role in the civil rights movement. In 1955, fed up with unequal treatment, Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. Her arrest led to a yearlong boycott of Montgomery, Alabama, buses by African Americans. For grades 2–4. 1997. DB50384

Rosa Parks: My Story by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins

In 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, an action that sparked the yearlong Montgomery bus boycott and helped launch the civil rights movement. Born in 1913 in rural Alabama, Rosa McCauley married Raymond Parks in 1932 and joined him in his civil rights activism, becoming secretary of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP. For grades 4–7 and older readers. 1992. DB38581

I Have a Dream: The Life and Words of Martin Luther King, Jr. by James Haskins with an introduction by Rosa Parks

A straightforward biography of the leader of the civil rights movement that focuses on his impact on the nation and his belief in nonviolence. Includes excerpts from King's speeches, sermons, letters, and writings. For grades 5–8 and older readers. 1992. BR09472

Oh, Freedom!: Kids Talk about the Civil Rights Movement with the People Who Made It Happen by Casey King with a foreword by Rosa Parks

Thirty-one grade-school children interview friends and relatives about their roles in the civil rights movement. Three additional essays provide information on segregation, the movement to end it, and the struggle against racial discrimination and poverty. For grades 5–8. 1997. BR11419

Murder on the Highway: The Viola Liuzzo Story by Beatrice Siegel with a foreword by Rosa Parks

The author tells of Viola Liuzzo, a white mother of five from Detroit who felt compelled to join the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. After marching with African Americans to obtain their right to vote, Liuzzo gave a fellow marcher a ride home. Ku Klux Klan members shot and killed Liuzzo as she was driving, making her the first white woman killed in the movement. For senior high and older readers. 1993. BR10496

Refuse to Stand Silently By: An Oral History of Grass Roots Social Activism in America, 1921-64 edited by Eliot Wigginton

The compiler of this oral history (originator of Foxfire magazine) groups contributors into categories defined by social action experience and date. But there the similarity ends. Individual activists, such as Rosa Parks and Pete Seeger, recall personal reactions to injustice and the critical points at which each took an active stance. 1991. DB36055 BR09132

Rosa Parks by Douglas Brinkley

A distinguished historian portrays the woman who became a symbol of freedom by her refusal to give up her Alabama bus seat to a white man in 1955. Brinkley examines her background, what led to her courageous action in the civil rights movement, and the repercussions. 2000. BR13342

Our Auntie Rosa : The Family of Rosa Parks Remembers her Life and Lessons by Sheila McCauley Keys

Many know of the role Rosa Parks played in the civil rights movement, but much less is known about her life outside that work. Keys presents a picture of Parks on a more personal level. Members of her family provide personal remembrances, reflections, photos, and letters paying tribute to Parks. 2015. DB81129

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis

Biography of civil rights leader Rosa Parks (1913-2005) focuses on her lifelong commitment to equality. Chronicles her education; the December 1955 day in Montgomery, Alabama, when she refused to give up her bus seat; subsequent personal hardships; and her four more decades of work for the movement. Strong language. 2013. DB76678 BR20083

Black Profiles in Courage by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Presents a historical gallery of heroes of African descent, recounting the stories of their contributions to the nation. The subjects include sixteenth-century explorer Estevanico, Crispus Attucks at the Boston Massacre, and Rosa Parks, who valiantly kept her seat on a segregated bus in 1955. 1996. DB44030

At the Dark End of the Street by Danielle L. McGuire

Historian presents the forgotten history of sexual violence against women of color in the twentieth-century Jim-Crow South. Begins with the notorious 1944 case of Recy Taylor, which brought to prominence a young NAACP investigator named Rosa Parks. Violence, strong language, and descriptions of sex. 2010. DB84006

A More Beautiful and Terrible History by Jeanne Theoharis

Historian dissects the myths surrounding the American civil rights movement and some of its most celebrated figures, such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. She discusses the diversity of those participants, the work involved, the role of the media, and more. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2018. DB90128

Let it Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters by Andrea Davis Pinkney

Portraits of ten African American women who advanced the causes of women's rights and racial justice: Sojourner Truth, Biddy Mason, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary McLeod Bethune, Ella Josephine Baker, Dorothy Irene Height, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Shirley Chisholm. For grades 4–7. Coretta Scott King Honor. 2000. For grades 4–7. Coretta Scott King Honor. 2000. DB52743

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30 Civil Rights Leaders of the Past and Present

We’ll feel the impact of these civil rights activists for generations to come.

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But he’s not the only figure we should actively learn about. Many Black civil rights activists preceded him, stood beside him, or have come after him and toiled in his memory, making it their priority to fight for the freedom of all Black Americans against all odds. Although you might recognize a few of these names from the pages of your history books or Black History Month lessons, others might turn out to be welcome discoveries, especially those hidden figures of our time . Then there are the leaders in our present moment who work to ensure people recognize that #BlackLivesMatter . Although their collective work spans decades, these civil rights leaders all have something in common: We’ll continue to feel their impact for generations to come.

Here are some highlights from the illustrious careers of 30 civil icons, including W.E.B. Du Bois , Dorothy Height , John Lewis , Ibram X. Kendi, and Ruby Bridges .

Ida B. Wells

As a dedicated journalist and feminist , Ida B. Wells used investigative reporting to shed light on the horrors of the lynching of Black Americans in the Jim Crow South. According to The Guardian , her work contradicted the common accepted belief that only rapists and other criminals were killed, rather than just victims of racism. Wells was also a cofounder of the NAACP and worked alongside Susan B. Anthony during the women’s suffrage movement.

Mary Church Terrell

A graduate of Oberlin College, Mary Church Terrell used her status as a member of the upper-class Black community to promote the advancement of her people through activism and education. Terrell’s father was enslaved before becoming one of the South’s first Black millionaires, according to the National Women’s History Museum . Terrell cofounded the National Association of Colored Women and the NAACP.

Read More about Mary Church Terrell

W.E.B. Du Bois

W.E.B. Du Bois was a sociologist, historian, and editor who cofounded the NAACP in 1909. In addition to serving on the board of directors and as a director of publicity and research, the Harvard graduate was also founder and editor of the NAACP’s magazine The Crisis . Through the publication, he influenced readers with ideals that were considered radical at the time. He advocated for protests and challenging of the societal norms that kept Black Americans segregated from their white counterparts. He encouraged integration and Black nationalism, values that were in direct opposition to the more conservative civil rights leader Booker T. Washington .

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A. Philip Randolph

As a trade unionist and passionate civil rights advocate, A. Philip Randolph created the first successful Black trade union and led them to (reluctant) acceptance into the American Federation of Labor. For much of his career, Randolph fought for equal trade opportunities for Black people. In regards to the ability of African Americans to partake in federal government employment and contracts, he vowed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that he’d lead thousands in a protest in Washington, D.C., if they didn’t receive equal treatment, resulting in the POTUS signing an executive order that banned discrimination in defense industries and at the federal level. Randolph also founded the League for Nonviolent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation, which inspired President Harry Truman to sign an executive order that forbade segregation in the military. He was also a principal organizer for 1963’s March on Washington.

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Roy Wilkins

Roy Wilkins was the executive director of the NAACP before stepping down in 1977. He was dedicated to nonviolence and prioritized using legal avenues to fight for change, such as leading the organization during the successful Brown v. Board of Education case and more.

Wilkins was also one of the minds behind the March on Washington in 1963 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon Johnson in 1967.

Ella Baker was a field secretary and branch director for the NAACP who cofounded an organization that raised money to fight Jim Crow laws. She was also a key organizer for Martin Luther King Jr. ’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. But her passion was the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which she founded to prioritize nonviolent protest. She also helped to organize the 1961 Freedom Rides and aided in registering Black voters.

Read More about Ella Baker

Thurgood Marshall

President Lyndon Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967, making him the first African American person to assume this role (which he held for 24 years). He’s also known for arguing and winning the case Brown v. Board of Education , which resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation in U.S. public schools according to race was unconstitutional in 1954. ​The attorney won 29 of the 32 cases he argued at the nation’s highest court throughout his career and previously served as chief of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in 1940.

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Pauli Murray

Pauli Murray was an author , lawyer , women’s rights activist , the first Black person to earn a doctor of the science of law degree from Yale, and the first Black woman to be ordained an Episcopal priest. Many of Murray’s essays, poems, and books (“Negroes Are Fed Up,” Dark Testament , and States’ Laws on Race and Color ) were foundational works of the Civil Rights Movement. Murray cofounded the Congress of Racial Equality and the National Organization for Women in 1966, alongside many noted feminists of the time, and was appointed to President John F. Kennedy ’s Committee on Civil and Political Rights.

Bayard Rustin

Bayard Rustin ’s lifelong commitment to nonviolence was at the root of his leadership in activism, as he’s credited with organizing many mass civil rights demonstrations , including 1957’s Prayer Pilgrimage to Freedom and 1963’s famous March on Washington. Rustin was openly gay, a taboo fact at the time that mostly didn’t deter Martin Luther King Jr. from valuing Rustin as an important adviser. He assisted King through the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the creation of the Southern Leadership Conference, while also deepening King’s knowledge of nonviolent tactics that became a pillar of the renowned leader’s legacy.

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Jo Ann Robinson

As a professor at Alabama State College and president of Montgomery’s Women’s Political Council, Jo Ann Robinson made desegregating the city’s buses her priority . Although she was already laying the foundation for a boycott, it was Rosa Park’s arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus that officially sparked Robinson to initiate action. What started as a one-day boycott turned into a 381-day fight led by the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), with Martin Luther King Jr. as its president. Robinson was a prominent leader behind the scenes of the MIA, largely contributing to the U.S. Supreme Court ’s 1956 ruling that segregated buses were unconstitutional.

Dorothy Height

After becoming president of the National Council of Negro Women, Dorothy Height served in the position for 40 years, making her one of the most trusted and leading voices for Black women during and after the Civil Rights Movement. It was during this time that she advocated for criminal justice reform and was vocal about the tragedies of lynching in the South. The Women’s History Museum credits her exemplary organizing skills as a way that she earned the trust of the likes of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt , President Lyndon B. Johnson , Martin Luther King Jr. , and President Dwight D. Eisenhower . And as a leading organizer, Height was also welcomed on the speaker’s stage at the 1963 March on Washington, representing the only women’s group involved in the demonstration. In 1994, she was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 2004, she was given the Congressional Gold Medal.

Read More about Dorothy Height

Rosa Parks is synonymous with the peak of the Civil Rights Movement. It all stems from December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, when Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus to a white passenger. Despite being arrested and jailed, her bravery sparked the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott, which led to the segregation of buses being deemed unconstitutional.

But her activism did not begin with that fateful day. At the time, Park had a passion for social justice and was the secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. After the boycott , she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bill Clinton in 1996 and was given the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Following her death in 2005, Parks became the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda.

Read More about Rosa Parks

Whitney Young Jr.

Beginning in 1961, World War II veteran Whitney Young Jr. was the executive director of the National Urban League for 10 years, where he developed relationships with white politicians to influence public policy to benefit the Black poor and working class. He was a trusted adviser for Presidents John F. Kennedy , Richard Nixon , and Lyndon B. Johnson . According to Clark Atlanta University, Young coauthored Johnson’s “War on Poverty” legislation.

Read More about Whitney Young Jr.

After he converted while in prison for robbery, Malcolm X ’s Islamic faith was the foundation of his social justice advocacy. As a prominent leader and voice in the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X preached ideals of Black nationalism and independence by tapping into the anger and frustration that resulted from years of racism and segregation. He was vocal about disagreeing with the nonviolent tactics of the mainstream Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. , insisting that white people were innately evil and Black people were superior. His words fueled the Black Power movement in the 1960s and ’70s.

However, two years before his death, he broke from the Nation of Islam and, in 1964, converted to Sunni Islam. He softened his more extreme views and formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity in hopes of globalizing the Black American fight.

Read More about Malcolm X

James Meredith

1933-present

U.S. Air Force veteran James Meredith became the first Black student to integrate the University of Mississippi in 1962. But this achievement followed a string of tumultuous events, including multiple registration attempts, opposition that led Meredith to take legal action, the involvement of the U.S. Supreme Court , and violent rioting on campus among hundreds of marshals, soldiers, and others. Two bystanders died in the tumult. Now 90 years old, Meredith is the author of multiple books and has been involved in politics.

Read More about James Meredith

Julian Bond

Morehouse College graduate Julian Bond was a prominent and outspoken figure of the Civil Rights Movement. While a student at the historically Black college, he cofounded the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC) alongside John Lewis . SNCC was opposed to the Vietnam War and repeatedly directed the national media’s attention to the racist treatment of Black Americans in the South.

Bond was a member of the Georgia General Assembly for 20 years and elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965. However, he was blocked from the seat by white members of the House who saw him as disloyal for opposing the war in Vietnam. A year later, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered him to be seated on the grounds of freedom of speech. He held the position for six terms. The statesman was also the cofounder of the Southern Poverty Law Center and chairman of the NAACP.

John Lewis —the man who coined the term “good trouble”—was a pillar for social justice and a staunch advocate for nonviolent civil rights demonstrations. Lewis was arrested multiple times in the Jim Crow South for organizing sit-ins at segregated lunch counters and participating in the 1961 Freedom Rides. Dubbed one of the “Big 6” of the Civil Rights Movement—along with Martin Luther King Jr. , A. Philip Randolph , Roy Wilkins, James Farmer , and Whitney Young Jr. , Lewis was the youngest speaker and organizer of the March on Washington.

Lewis also led the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and the crossing of Edmund Pettus Bridge on what became known as “Bloody Sunday” after state troopers brutally attacked marchers. Lewis suffered a fractured skull, yet the demonstration and its aftermath influenced the passing of the Voting Rights Act, which Lewis remained a staunch supporter of until his last days.

In 1986, he was elected to the House of Representatives in Georgia’s 5th district. It was a position he held until his death in 2020. The politician was also a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to him by Barack Obama in 2011.

Read More about John Lewis

Ernestine Eckstein

As a Black woman and a lesbian, Ernestine Eckstein was a leading supporter of both civil and LGBTQ rights in the 1960s and ’70s. She worked with the NAACP and was a member of the Congress of Racial Equality, but her most influential position was as vice president of the New York chapter of Daughters of Bilitis, which was the first center solely for lesbians in NYC. Eckstein also participated in the earliest picket line protests for gay rights in the country. There are photos of her demonstrating in 1965 in front of the White House as the only person of color in attendance.

Marsha P. Johnson

Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson is known to many as the leader of the gay liberation movement. She led an uprising after members of the LGBTQ community were harassed at at the Stonewall Inn by members of the New York Police Department in 1969. Johnson was a successful drag queen and used her influence to lift up others, creating the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries in 1970, an organization that worked to find housing for homeless transgender youth.

Read More about Marsha P. Johnson

Ruby Bridges

1954-present

At age 6, Ruby Bridges became the first Black student to integrate William Franz Elementary School—a white public school in New Orleans—in November 1960. Southern states had been opposing the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that made segregation in public schools unconstitutional, but Louisiana was forced to integrate following a federal court order.

Angry onlookers jeered at Bridges as she walked by with the help of federal marshals on her first day, and white parents removed their kids from the institution. She was the youngest Black student to do this in the American South.

Norman Rockwell ’s famous 1963 painting depicts her groundbreaking walk on that first day. In 2011, President Barack Obama paid tribute to Bridges, now 69, at the White House. Schools in states like California and Oregon observe Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day annually on November 14.

Read More about Ruby Bridges

McKenzie Jean-Philippe is the editorial assistant at OprahMag.com covering pop culture, TV, movies, celebrity, and lifestyle. She loves a great Oprah viral moment and all things Netflix—but come summertime, Big Brother has her heart. On a day off you'll find her curled up with a new juicy romance novel.

Jane Burnett is an Assistant Editor at Oprah Daily, where she writes a variety of lifestyle content for the editorial team. She's a journalist with a pop culture sweet tooth—when she isn't catching up on celebrity news, she's usually listening to a podcast! Jane was previously an on-air reporter in local news, and worked at Thrive Global, Ladders News, and Reuters. She also interned at CNBC through the Emma Bowen Foundation, and is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). 

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