Early Life:
Rosa Parks was born to the parents of Leona and James
McCauley who was a Carpenter and Teacher.
Rosa was born as Rosa Louise McCauley but later got married to Raymond
Parks.
February 4th 1913 was the day the role model was born in
Tuskegee, Alabama. Once her parents were divorced, she moved with her mum,
grandparents and brother onto a farm and as grew up with a great relationship
with a church for black people. When she was at a Laboratory School which was
created by the college she went to, her mother and grandmother sadly grew ill
so Rosa had to quit so she could stay with her at home.
Explanation of the Law:In the 1900’s, the people in Montgomery could vote for where different people could sit in the bus for the law, but sadly only the white could vote. The end result ended up keeping the ‘coloured’ at the back of the bus and leaving the first 4 rows for the white people. Once those rows filled up, the bus driver could move the sign for the ‘coloured’ people back so there would be more space for the white. This means the black sitting in the newly ‘white’ area had to move back.
The incident:
Thursday, 1st December 1955 Rosa paid her money
and bordered the 6pm bus. As the bus drove off, a lot more white people came on
from different stops and soon filled up the front of the bus. The driver (James
Blake) moved the sign to the back. The 4 people sitting in the new white
section were asked to move but refused. When he threatened them, 3 of them got
up and moved but Rosa stuck to her place. When James thought she was getting up
she just moved closer to the window. “Why don’t you stand up?” James said.
“I don’t think I have to stand up.” She replied. James threatened her by saying he would call
the police and get them to arrest her but she didn’t care and stayed in her
seat.Rosa got arrested later that day and dragged off the bus to the police station.
This is what Rosa said to a television program in 1987, "When he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up, and I said, 'No, I'm not.' And he said, 'Well, if you don't stand up, I'm going to have to call the police and have you arrested.' I said, 'You may do that.”
After the arrest:
After she was arrested, she became a role model to many people. Her husband quit his job because he wasn’t aloud to talk about his wife or what she did but the Parks continued telling people about there story. In the 1970’s the Parks family got ill. Rosa and her husband had stomach aches for a couple of years as well as later her husband, mother and brother got cancer. August 19th 1977 her husband died with throat cancer and in the following November, her brother died of cancer as well. Rosa slipped on an icy pavement and broke two bones along the way. She decided to move into a old peoples home to look after her mother in her final years until 1979 when she died at 92 years old.
Funeral:
On October 24th 2005, they hung black ribbons all around the buses until her funeral on the 2nd of November 2005. Her funeral was a seven hour long service at Greater Grace Temple Church in Detroit. She lies next to her mother and husband and now the Cemetery is called ‘Rosa L. Parks Freedom Chapel’
By Hannah Wildash-Chan
