Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks

By Rebecca Vaccariello, 3'C

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Summary

Who she was

What she did

Segregation

This separation was generally imposed on African Americans according to the legal and social principle of "separate but equal"; the term also refers to general discrimination against black people by white communities.Places often had signs saying “Whites Only”.

Segregation

Racial segregation in the United States refers to the separation of people and the restriction of their civil rights on a racial basis in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries; this precluded access to facilities and services such as housing, medical care, education, work and transport.

His parents were also activists for the black community. The environment in which Rosa grew up was characterized by a strong propensity for racism and characterized by stringent racial norms, a legacy of slavery, a panorama similar to that of several southern states of the United States which in that period preached the division between blacks and whites: separate but equal, and in which people of color enjoyed fewer rights and suffered constant humiliation. In 1932, at just 19 years old, she married barber Raymond Parks, an activist in the African-American civil rights movement.

Who was she

Rosa Parks was the daughter of James Henry McCauley, a carpenter and stonemason, and Leona Carlie Edwards, a poorly paid elementary school teacher. During war her mother worked in Detroit, Michigan, and Rosa saw that Northern African Americans had more freedom than Southern African Americans. In addition to African ancestry, one of Rosa Parks' great-grandfathers was Scots-Irish and one of her great-grandmothers was a part-Native American slave.

After three stops, the driver James F. Blake asked her to get up and move to the back of the vehicle to give way to a white passenger who got in after her. Rosa, maintaining a calm, subdued and dignified demeanor, refused to move or leave her seat. The driver stopped the vehicle and called two police officers to resolve the matter: Rosa Parks was arrested.

What she did

On December 1, 1955, Rosa was in Montgomery and was riding the bus home from her job as a seamstress in a department store. Finding no other free seats, she occupied the first place behind the area reserved for whites, in the sector of seats accessible to both whites and blacks with the obligation for blacks to give up their seats if a white person got on while there were no seats available.

Why I chose her?

I chose Rosa Parks because, compared to other activists, she took a small action (she did not become a politician or a president), but she still reawakened the sense of freedom of African-Americans and Americans.