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
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.
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.
failing to obey the order of bus driver.
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.
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,
I was just trying to let them know how I felt about being treated as a human being,
People are exploiting it, ... We are very concerned about that.
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.
We've got an urban area with very few middle-class citizens in it, ... I don't think anything could bring me back.
I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free... and other people would be also free.
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.