Rosa Parks Facts
Rosa Parks Facts
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| Interesting Rosa Parks Facts: |
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| Rosa attended rural schools until she was 11. She attended Teachers College but had to drop out to care for her ailing grandmother and then mother. |
| Rosa remembered segregation in schools and white students attending one school while African-Americans attended another. |
| Rosa recalled being bullied by white children as a child but she also remembered the kindness of white strangers at times. |
| Rosa became Rosa Parks in 1932 when she married Raymond Parks - a member of the NAACP. |
| Rosa worked as a hospital aide and domestic worker. Her husband encouraged her to complete her high school diploma - which she did in 1933. |
| Rosa Parks became active in the civil rights movement in 1943 and joined the NAACP in Montgomery. She became their secretary, which she did until 1957. |
| The NAACP leader at the time Edgar Nixon believed women should only be in the kitchen. |
| Rosa Parks investigated racial cases as part of her position of secretary. |
| The buses in Montgomery where Rosa Parks lived had been segregated since 1900. It was common and customary for Africa-Americans to give up their seats for white passengers whenever there were not enough seats. |
| Rosa Parks and many others complained for many years that the bus seating issue was unjust. |
| On Thursday, December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat and got into an argument with the bus driver James Blake. He threatened to have her arrested. She was arrested and charged according to the Montgomery City code regarding segregation laws. |
| Rosa Parks was found guilty the next day and fined $10 plus $4 in court costs. She immediately launched an appeal. |
| A bus boycott was organized and announced on December 4, 1955. The boycott was a success. |
| Another boycott was launched and it lasted for 381 days. The city was forced to repeal its segregation laws. It was forced to repeal the laws because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation laws were unconstitutional. |
| Due to Rosa Parks' involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, she suffered hardships, common at the time. Sanctions were often imposed on such activists. |
| Rosa and her husband moved to Virginia in 1957. She became friends with Malcolm X and continued to be involved in activism. |
| Rosa Parks spent the rest of her life involved in activism, speaking and writing about her work. |
| Rosa lived to 92. She passed away on October 24, 2005 in Detroit, from Natural causes. Many honors have been awarded to Rosa Parks including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. |
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