Rosa Parks: My Story
(Rosa Parks)

Chapter One

Rosa was born in a time when there were laws in the South which segregated white Americans from black African-Americans. From a young age, she knew that the laws were wrong, and she must do something someday to help. She grew up in Pine Level, Alabama which was in Montgomery County. Her parents, Leona and James, were a teacher and carpenter, respectively. They married in April of 1912 and Rosa was born only ten months later.

Rosa’s mother was not ready to be a mother, though she was twenty-five years old when Rosa was born; though Rosa believes that her trepidation came from her being alone all the time as Rosa’s father travelled often. Leona wanted James to take a job as the Tuskegee Institute, guaranteeing the family a place to live and the children a place to get an education, but he decided to travel and do contracting work instead. Leona, now pregnant with her second child, took Rosa and moved in with her parents because James was always away. Rosa only saw her father a couple of times from that point until after she was married, and her parents’ marriage was not able to last.

Rosa learned a lot about her family history while living with her grandparents. Her maternal great-grandparents had been slaves, and when slavery was abolished they continued to work for the same white family they had been enslaved to, with the understanding that they were free and could leave whenever they pleased. Her grandfather, Sylvester, had been born to a slaveowner and his slave housekeeper, who had died when Sylvester was terribly young. After his father’s death Sylvester was treated particularly badly which caused him to be extremely bitter toward the white man. He could pass for white himself, as he was majorly light-skinned, and would often introduce himself by his last name and shake the hands of white men just because he could get away with it. Rosa’s grandfather did not want his children to ever work for whites, though Leona’s sister Fannie did just that rather than attend secondary school.

Leona, however, attended school and received her certificate in teaching. After Rosa’s brother, also named Sylvester, was born Leona went back to teaching after taking a break. She worked in a town called Spring Hill, as the black school in Pine Level already had a teacher; she had to stay in Spring Hill during the week because the commute was too long to take daily. Rosa enjoyed the time she and Sylvester spent with their grandparents and she became majorly protective of her brother, even stopping her grandmother from whipping him one day.

Chapter Two

When Rosa was ten-years-old, she had a run in with a white boy named Franklin. Franklin balled up his fist, like he was going to punch Rosa, but he retreated when she picked up a brick and dared him to do it. Rosa’s grandparents worried about her because they believed her inability to accept the way things were was going to get her lynched by the time she turned twenty. Rosa and Sylvester started school a year apart from one other; Rosa when she was about six and Sylvester when he was about five.

They attended the only black school in Pine Level, which was on the grounds of the Zion church. The schoolhouse taught children up to grade six, all in one large room where the students were arranged in rows according to age. Rosa was often teased for being smaller than the other students and sickly, but she enjoyed school regardless; she especially enjoyed her teachers Miss Hill and Miss Beulah.

Rosa also enjoyed reading, which she learned before she entered school, and playing games out in the yard. At a young age, Rosa began to see the segregation between blacks and whites; blacks did not have school buses, they attended school less time because they had to help in the fields, and the Ku Klux Klan ran amuck. Rosa remembers her grandfather staying up at night with his shotgun nearby during a particularly critical time with the Klan, vowing to shoot the first one who walked through his door.

Rosa’s family was one of the few black families who owned their own land; as they had inherited it from generous white folks in the past. They spent the days working on their own land, and when that was finished they would head over to Mr. Moses Hudson’s field to work. Rosa was only six or seven when she began working the fields; she began picking cotton and when she became older she would chop cotton.

Rosa recalls that the only people who wore shoes in the fields were the overseer, a man called Mr. Freeman, and his horse. It was said that the only black people who stood up to white folk were those who had white blood in them, but Rosa remembers a man named Mr. Sherman Gray who had not a drop of white blood in him; Mr. Gray would walk around with his cane, refusing to work, and constantly challenging Mr. Freeman.

Despite the unfair treatment, Rosa did not hate all white people, nor was she mistreated by all of them. She remembers that a decidedly old white woman was uncommonly kind to her and would often take her fishing.

Chapter Three

Rosa visited Montgomery for the first time when she was eight-years-old. Leona attended summer school at Alabama State Normal, the black teachers’ college, in order to keep her licensure current. Rosa and Leona would stay with family members in Montgomery because Leona did not make enough money to stay in a hotel.

First they stayed with Cousin Ida Nobles, first cousin of Rosa’s grandmother. When Cousin Ida expressed a desire to adopt Rosa as her own child and bring her up in Montgomery Leona refused and decided it would be best for her and Rosa to stay with her cousin Lelar Percival and his wife Saphonia. They had three children of their own, including a newborn and Rosa enjoyed staying with them for the summer.

Rosa attended classes at Alabama State Normal while she was there and she enjoyed it; especially because with the warmer weather she was not ill as often. Upon returning to Pine Level, Rosa learned that the school at Mount Zion had been shut down, and its students would have to attend school in Spring Hill, where Leona taught. Rosa enjoyed having her mother as a teacher, as she was extraordinarily creative in her methods.

When Rosa aged out of Spring Hill School, she was sent to the Montgomery Industrial School, which was also known as Miss White’s school. Miss White and her fellow teachers were all white women from the North who were ostracized in Montgomery because they taught black children.

Rosa had her tonsils removed before she started school at Miss White’s, and it took her an awful long time to recover, though once she did she began to grow considerably and was rarely ill anymore. Leona paid tuition for Rosa to attend Miss White’s but soon she was unable to afford it so Rosa had to attend on scholarship, doing odd jobs around the school to earn her keep.

While attending Miss White’s Rosa lived with Aunt Fannie and often had to travel through white neighborhoods where she was often confronted with the realities of segregation. She and her brother had several run-ins with white children, though thankfully were never seriously injured; she also became aware of segregation of public facilities such as water fountains and street cars.

Rosa learned a lot about dignity and self-respect while at Miss White’s school and enjoyed her time there, though it closed after Rosa completed eighth grade because Miss White was getting too old to run it, as were her fellow teachers and no one else wanted the job. After Miss White’s, Rosa attended a newly built public junior high for black students and then the laboratory school at Alabama Normal School; a prep school for teachers.

Rosa was forced to leave school at age sixteen to care for her ailing grandmother, who passed away only a couple of months later. She attended again only for a short time before she had to leave to care for her mother, who also fell ill. Though Rosa’s mother got better Rosa did not return to school until after she was married, instead taking on domestic jobs to make ends meet.

Chapter Four

Rosa was introduced to Raymond Parks, whom everyone simply called “Parks”, by a mutual friend who thought they may be beneficial for one another. Parks knew that he wanted to get to know Rosa right away, but she resisted his advances.

Finally, after he tracked her down at her own home, she agreed to spend some time with him and found out that he was a fascinating man. He had received remarkably little formal schooling and had been mostly homeschooled but was extraordinarily intelligent and articulate. He was a member of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and was about ten years older than Rosa. She admired his strength in the fight for Civil Rights, his commitment to the cause, and his refusal to be afraid of the white man.

One day shortly after they met Parks told Rosa they should get married, and she agreed with him; he asked her mother’s permission and five months later, in December 1932, they were man and wife. Parks was hugely supportive of Rosa’s desire to finish school and in 1933 she received her high school diploma, an honor that not many black people achieved at that time. Despite having a diploma, Rosa was not able to get a good job though she made ends meet by working at Maxwell Field, a naval base which President Roosevelt insisted be racially integrated.

Parks was heavily involved in the case of the Scottsboro Boys; nine men who were accused of raping two women despite the fact that they did not even know one another before being arrested. Parks and his compatriots were sure of the innocence of the Scottsboro Boys and did everything in their power to help the boys legally, even after they were all but one sentenced to death.

Parks’ involvement in this group put him in grave danger, and he would not allow Rosa to accompany him to any of the meetings because he feared that she would be hurt or killed. Rosa was often fearful that Parks would not make it home after one of the meetings though she knew that what he was doing was for an important cause.

One day when Rosa was heading to the train station with some friends she was stopped by a policeman who accosted her and pushed her into a railing with his baton before letting her go; she never told Parks of this incident but it made her fearful of what the white man could be capable of.

Chapter Five

When Parks was done fighting for the Scottsboro Boys, all of whom managed to escape execution, he became involved in Voter’s Rights, which is a cause he had been passionate about for a long time. Though it was legal for black people to vote, it was difficult for them to become registered so there were exceedingly few registered African-American voters.

Parks tried a couple of times to register and even had a few white friends who were willing to help him out, but he was determined to do it by himself and thus did not become a registered voter until years later when he and Rosa were living in Detroit, Michigan.

Mr. E.D. Nixon was a man who was also passionate about Civil Rights and he tried to help as many black citizens become voters as possible; he encouraged them to head to the registration office themselves rather than wait for a white person to vouch for them.

Rosa decided she wanted to register though she knew it would be difficult. Purposefully, the registration hours were usually at a time when black people would be working and thus would not be able to make it.

Also, the doors would close at a certain time promptly, even if there were still more people in line. Once inside, the applicant would have to take a test consisting of questions on the Constitution.

Rosa failed her first test, though she was sure that she had the answers right; when she went in for her second test she made copies of her answers to show the registration board if she was denied again, though this time she passed and became a registered voter.

In 1945, the second time Rosa took her registration test, she was kicked off a bus for the first time. It was in Montgomery, where there were assigned seats at the front of the bus for whites and understood black seating in the back of the bus though the bus driver could move the segregation line back as he saw fit.

Some drivers were especially nasty and would make the black people pay up front and then get off the bus and walk around to the back to get on, rather than allowing them to walk up the aisle, and often taking off before the person got back onto the bus. On this day, the back of the bus was chocked full, and some people were even hanging off the steps at the back, but the front of the bus was nearly empty.

Rosa walked down the aisle to squeeze into a place at the back of the bus, and the driver marched back to her, grabbed her coat sleeve, and told her to get off the bus and go around the back. Rosa refused but did agree to get off the man’s bus.

On her way to the front, she dropped her purse and sat herself down on one of the seats in the front to pick it up. The man told her to get off his bus, and she did as she already had a transfer ticket stamped for her connecting bus; though she vowed to never get on that man’s bus again.

Chapter Six

When Rosa was kicked off that bus, she was already a member of the NAACP with Parks. The NAACP had been found on February 12, 1909; Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Rosa did not hear of any women being involved in the NAACP and Parks never encouraged her to join, despite his involvement, because he felt it would put her at risk.

One day Rosa learned that a woman she had attended school with, Johnnie Carr, was working with the Montgomery Branch of the NAACP. Rosa decided to attend a meeting with the hopes of running into Johnnie, and she left the meeting as their new Secretary. Back in the 1930s and 1940s, there were few women involved in the movement for civil rights, but by the time the 1950s and 1960s rolled around, there were many women involved.

Mr. E.D. Nixon was the president of the NAACP Montgomery Branch at that time, and he appreciated the work that Rosa put in as his secretary. It was her duty to keep minutes at the meetings, to send out press releases and letters, to answer phones, and to keep record of incidences of violence against blacks.

Many of the cases that Rosa and the other members of the NAACP became involved in were cases concerning sexual relations between black and white folks. In one case, a black woman was lured into a car at gunpoint and raped by six men; despite one of the men admitting to the crime and naming his accomplices the men were found innocent.

In another case, a white woman was having a relationship with a teenage black boy though when someone found out she declared rape and the young man was sentenced to death; despite the NAACP’s efforts to save the boy, he was executed at age twenty-one. There was another case where a windowed white woman had a consensual relationship with a black man and when they were found out she refused to declare rape, despite being urged by the police.

The woman was arrested, and she gave the man money to run; years later she took her own life. The NAACP was involved in many cases like this but was rarely able to get justice for the African-American citizens who had been wronged; still Rosa knew her work was paramount and kept her determination to make a change.

Chapter Seven

In the late 1940s, after the end of the war, there was a surge of violence against blacks; this was presumably because the returning soldiers believed they should be treated as equals. Rosa’s brother Sylvester was amongst these returning soldiers, and he was not used to being in a segregated environment where he was looked down upon, after having been overseas where conditions were just as he had left them if not worse.

Rosa recalls several instances where black men were outright abused by white men and the white men were acquitted immediately when the case went to trial. In the 1950s Mr. Nixon stepped down as head of the Montgomery NAACP though Rosa continued to volunteer as his secretary in whatever area he may need one. He introduced her to Mrs. Virginia Durr; a white woman who, along with her husband, was a proponent for equal civil rights. Mrs. Durr took an immediate liking to Rosa, and the two became friends.

Mrs. Durr and her husband had made the conscious decision to live in Alabama, knowing that they would not be accepted by the other white folks because of their support of the African-American community.

The year that Rosa met Mrs. Durr was 1954, which was the same year that the US Supreme Court deemed segregation in schools to be illegal with the Brown v Board of Education case; a move which had been some thirty years in the making. After this court decision, the civil rights movement started buzzing about what would happen next and making plans for the future.

Mrs. Durr told Rosa about a workshop at Highlander School in Monteagle, Tennessee; the purpose of the workshop was to brainstorm ideas on how best to implement the Supreme Court decision. Mrs. Durr and Mr. Nixon both thought that Rosa should go and helped to pay her way; Parks did not go because he did not like to travel but had no problem with Rosa going.

At the workshop, Rosa finally experienced an integrated environment with no stress which was truly equal. She made a whopping friend named Septina Poinsette Clark, whom she kept in contact with for many years and who was a fascinating woman. Rosa loved her time there and did not want to leave, though she knew that of course she must.

Chapter Eight

Black people in the South were more angered by the bus segregation laws than any other segregation laws. Mr. Nixon often visited the bus company to campaign for changes which would help to make bus routes and treatment on the buses fairer for the black passengers, though his requests were always turned down for some odd reason or another.

Rosa, Mr. Nixon and some others tried to form a case against the segregation laws whenever they heard of someone refusing to give up their seat on the bus, but the cases always fell through. There was one incident when a young woman named Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat and was arrested; her case seemed a perfect test case until Mr. Nixon found out she was pregnant out of wedlock and he knew that the white folk would have a field day with that information. On the day of December 1, 1955, when Rosa refused to give up her seat on the bus, the idea that she could be just the case Mr. Nixon was looking for did not even cross her mind.

Rosa got on the bus after work and sat in one of the middle seats; the first row of seats for black passengers. It was not until Rosa sat down that she realized the driver of the bus was the same man who had kicked her off of a bus twelve years earlier. As the bus filled up with white passengers, one man was left standing, and the driver told the people in Rosa’s row to get up so the man could sit down. At first they all refused though after they were threatened with arrest the three people other than Rosa all got up and moved.

The driver told Rosa to get up, and she said no; he told her that he would have her arrested, and she said, “You may do that”. The police who came to the scene did not manhandle Rosa in any way and were rather cordial with her when asking her why she did not give up her seat; they even admitted that they did not know why blacks were treated so poorly but “the law is the law”. At the police station, Rosa was not allowed a drink or a phone call, which she was sure was against her rights.

It was not until Rosa was taken to the jail that she finally got a chance to make a call. She called Parks who made arrangements for Mr. Durr to represent her and for her bail to be paid. When Rosa was released from jail everyone was seriously worried about her, and she was a bit shaken up by the events of the day. Mr. Nixon asked Rosa if she would be willing to be the test case and after speaking to her mother and Parks about it, Rosa agreed.

Chapter Nine

Rosa was the ideal candidate for a test trial because there was nothing disagreeable that anyone could say about her, and Mr. Nixon himself could vouch for her as she had worked for him for twelve years. Fred Gray, a black attorney, got together with the head of the Women’s Political Council, Jo Ann Robinson and organized a bus boycott.

There were fliers made up and distributed throughout Montgomery announcing the boycott for Monday December 5, 1955; the day of Rosa’s trial. Rosa went about her business like nothing had happened, going to work and meeting Fred Gray for lunch just as she always did. The evening of December 2, 1955 Rosa attended a meeting at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church where the boycott was discussed further, as well as plans.

When the morning of Monday, December 5, 1955 rolled around, the skies were an ominous gray and Rosa and the others worried that the weather would keep blacks from boycotting the buses. However, on that day nearly all of the blacks refused to ride the buses and the black cab companies gave rides for ten cents, the same price as the bus, to discourage people from riding.

That day Rosa went to her trial, knowing that she would lose. Her attorneys did not want her to win because they wanted the chance to appeal to the higher courts, as the higher courts were capable of changing the segregation laws. Later that evening Rosa attended a meeting at the Holt Street Baptist Church where the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was announced; it had been formed earlier that day.

Elected president of the MIA was the young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King was the perfect choice, according to Mr. Nixon, because he had not been in town long enough to make any friends or enemies. The subject of the meeting that evening was to decide whether the boycott should continue and to think about plans for the movement.

Dr. King gave the first of many articulate speeches and Reverend Abernathy read to the attendees a list of demands the MIA would present to the bus company. The list asked that blacks be treated fairly while on the bus, that seating become first come first serve with the blacks in the back and whites in the front and that black drivers be hired for the black bus routes. Everyone agreed upon these requests.

Chapter Ten

Dr. King, Rev. Abernathy, and Mr. Nixon met with the bus company to go over the demands, but they were refused; and again by city commissioners. The bus company would not even admit that the drivers were rude to black passengers. Because the demands were turned down, the boycott continued.

Police officers tried unsuccessfully to scare the black folks who waited on the corners for cabs and many white employers fired their black employees. Rosa and Parks lost their jobs as well though they were not fired; Parks resigned when his bosses banned any speak of Rosa on the premises, and Rosa was let go when her shop was forced to shut down.

Rosa was then able to put her efforts into helping the MIA to arrange a sophisticated transportation system for the black citizens, made up of cars and station wagons the churches had purchased. She also was able to hand out donated clothing and shoes to black folks, who could no longer afford such necessities after losing their employment. Violence against blacks was at an all-time high during this period, with homes being bombed and threats being made left and right.

In February of 1956 Fred Gray filed suit in US District Court declaring bus segregation unconstitutional; this was their way of answering Rosa’s initial case of which the appeal had been thrown out. Gray wanted the case to go to the US Supreme Court which could take quite some time. In the meantime, a group of white attorneys found a law that forbid boycotts and several people were arrested under this law, Rosa included. When the trials began for those who were arrested Dr. King was first.

He was found guilty though his conviction was later successfully appealed; he was the only one who was tried. The press gave the boycott a lot of attention, and because of it, Rosa was asked to travel around and to speak at gatherings about her experiences and the MIA, including at the Highlander Folk School where she had visited years before.

The case was successfully sent to the US Supreme Court and finally on November 13, 1956 the ruling was handed down declaring bus segregation illegal. Still the buses were boycotted until December 20 when the written order came through. Press came to take photos of Rosa, Dr. King and the others sitting on the first integrated buses and the movement ran throughout the country; the civil rights movement was officially active.

Chapter Eleven

Shortly after the bus boycott Rosa and her family moved from Alabama to Detroit to escape the harassment and threatening phone calls; Sylvester had found an apartment for Rosa, Parks, and their mother to live in. Rosa continued to travel and do speaking engagements. While in Boston Rosa was offered a position at the Holly Tree Inn, which housed residents and guests of the Hampton Institute; she had hoped there would be a place there for her husband and mother but there was not.

Parks did well regardless, becoming a licensed barber and even teaching at the barber college. It was not long before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was stabbed, which was a traumatic experience for Rosa; she was immensely relieved when his operation proved successful. Shortly after, Rosa decided to move back to Detroit when her efforts to move Parks, and her mother to Boston proved fruitless.

Back in Detroit, Rosa began work as a seamstress and became involved with Dr. King’s newly formed Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which fought against segregation in the south. The women were not so involved in the marches and demonstrations of the SCLC but Rosa, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, Josephine Baker, and Lena Horne tried to help in any way they could.

The civil-rights movement was gaining headway, though not amongst the white southerners but certainly amongst the politicians in Washington D.C.; President Johnson made the biggest political move thus far by pushing into effect the Civil Rights Movement of 1964 which gave protection to black citizens. Following the fifty-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act which allowed all black citizens to register to vote without jumping through hoops as they had been made to before.

Dr. King truly believed that nonviolent protest, as he had learned from studying Mohandas Gandhi, helped to move the civil rights movement along. Rosa had not always practiced non-violence and still did not always believe in it; though she strongly believed that the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s would not have been so successful had they resorted to violent means.

Chapter Twelve

Rosa began working for a man named John Conyers, whom she supported in his candidacy for congress, in 1964. That same year, Malcolm X was shot and killed. Malcolm X was a member of the Black Muslims, a group which preached the hatred of white folks and encouraged blacks to own their own businesses and build strong family ties.

While Rosa did not agree with expressing hatred for any individuals, she did admire Malcolm X as a person for he was an incredibly intelligent man who worked hard for the progression of the African-American race. Rosa did not know Malcolm X and had only met him once, just one week before his death, yet she appreciated his stance in the civil rights movement.

Three years after Malcolm X was killed, so was Dr. King. He had been shot while participating in a march with black garbage collectors, and his assassination was announced on the radio while Rosa and her mother were listening. Rosa was not as shocked by this attack on Dr. King because by this time she had accepted that some people in the world wished him physical harm. Two months later Senator Robert Kennedy, a supporter of Dr. King, was also assassinated, and Rosa could not help but feel as though all of the good guys were being taken away.

The 1970s were a tough time for Rosa as the people she held nearest and dearest were leaving her. Parks, Sylvester, and Rosa’s mother all became ill with cancer and Rosa had to reduce her work to part-time in order to visit three separate hospitals visiting them all. Parks was the first to die in 1977 at the age of seventy-four, followed only three months later by Sylvester.

After that Rosa was forced to put her mother into a nursing home facility because she was unable to care for her, though she visited at meal times every single day. Rosa’s mother passed in 1979 at the age of ninety-one. Despite Rosa having health issues of her own, she continued her role as an icon for the African-American community and founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development in 1987.

The purpose of the program is to assist the youth in continuing education and realizing their dreams. Rosa believes that people have blown her role in the civil rights movement out of proportion, but she realizes that many people look up to her and so she gratefully accepts awards and accolades that she is given, and gladly speaks of her involvement whenever she is asked. She feels the nation still has a ways to go, as white supremacy groups exist on college campuses and the Supreme Court does not take racial prejudice matters as seriously as they should, though she has hopes for the future.