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
People have said over the years that the reason I did not give up my seat was because I was tired. I did not think of being physically tired. My feet were not hurting. I was tired in a different way. I was tired of seeing so many men treated as boys and not called by their proper names or titles. I was tired of seeing children and women mistreated and disrespected because of the color of their skin. I was tired of Jim Crow laws, of legally enforced racial segregation.
If I can sit down for freedom, you can stand up for children.
Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.
There is work to do; that is why I cannot stop or sit still. As long as a child needs help, as long as people are not free, there will be work to do. As long as an elderly person is attacked or in need of support, there is work to do. As long as we have bigotry and crime, we have work to do.
The time had just come when I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed, I suppose. I had decided that I would have to know, once and for all, what rights I had as a human being and a citizen, even in Montgomery, Alabama.
At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this, ... It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in.
I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free... and other people would be also free.
I didn't want to. I didn't think I should have to. I didn't feel that it was the right thing for us to be enduring.
she stood up by sitting down. I'm only standing here because of her.
When they stood up and I stayed where I was, he asked me if I was going to stand and I told him that 'no, I wasn't,' and he told me if I did not stand up he was going to have me arrested. And, I told him to go on and have me arrested,
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.
failing to obey the order of bus driver.
You treated her with deference because she was so quiet, so serene -- just a very special person,
It was not pre-arranged. It just happened that the driver made and demand and I just didn't feel like obeying his demand . . . I was quite tired after spending a full day working.