Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parkswas an African American civil rights activist, whom the United States Congress called "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement". Her birthday, February 4, and the day she was arrested, December 1, have both become Rosa Parks Day, commemorated in California and Missouri, and Ohio and Oregon...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCivil Rights Leader
Date of Birth4 February 1913
CityTuskegee, AL
CountryUnited States of America
the real reason of my not standing up was I felt that I had a right to be treated as any other passenger. We had endured that kind of treatment for too long.
was the catalyst of one of the most important freedom movements not only in American history but in world history .. indeed she became the symbol and personification of our nonviolent struggle for liberation and human dignity.
was that I was a person with dignity and self-respect, and I should not set my sights lower than anybody else just because I was black.
He was the first, aside from my grandfather and Mr. Gus Vaughn, who was never actually afraid of white people, ... So many African Americans felt that you just had to be under Mr. Charlie's heel - that's what we called the white man, Mr. Charlie - and couldn't do anything to cross him. In other words, Parks believed in being a man and expected to be treated as a man.
When the history of this country is written, when a final accounting is done, it is this small, quiet woman whose name will be remembered long after the names of senators and presidents have been forgotten.
People are exploiting it, ... We are very concerned about that.
I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free... and other people would be also free.
I was just trying to let them know how I felt about being treated as a human being,
Her act of civil disobedience, for which she was willing to pay the price to end the rein of terror, got her arrested.
He pointed at me and said, 'that one won't stand up.' The two policemen came near me and only one spoke to me. He asked me if the driver had asked me to stand up? I said, 'yes.' He asked me why I didn't stand up, ... I told him I didn't think I should have to stand up. So I asked him: 'Why do you push us around?' And he told me, 'I don't know, but the law is the law and you are under arrest.'
My only concern was to get home after a hard day's work.
Arrest me for sitting on a bus? You may do that.
I see the energy of young people as a real force for positive change.
There is no future without education.