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
There is no future without education.
I will no longer act on the outside in a way that contradicts the truth that I hold deeply inside. I will no longer act as if I were less than the whole person I know myself inwardly to be.
All I was trying to do was get home from work.
Victory or defeat? It is the slogan of all-powerful militarism in every belligerent nation. And yet, what can victory bring to the proletariat?
It takes more than one person to bring about peace - it takes all of us.
I did not want to be mistreated, I did not want to be deprived of a seat that I had paid for. It was just time… there was opportunity for me to take a stand to express the way I felt about being treated in that manner. I had not planned to get arrested. I had plenty to do without having to end up in jail. But when I had to face that decision, I didn't hesitate to do so because I felt that we had endured that too long. The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became.
I had felt for a long time, that if I was ever told to get up so a white person could sit, that I would refuse to do so.
I'd see the bus pass every day… But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and a white world.
Racial pride and self-dignity were emphasized in my family and community.
I was determined to achieve the total freedom that our history lessons...
Why do you all push us around?
I was ready to die but give my consent never. Never, never.
I'm tired of being treated like a second-class citizen.
I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed. I had decided that I would have to know once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen.