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 Rosa
Louise McCauley was born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama to James
and Leona McCauley. At age two her family moved to Pine Level, Alabama,
to live with her maternal grandparents. Her mother, a school teacher, taught
Rosa at home until age eleven when she moved to Montgomery to live with
her aunt. She enrolled in a private school, the Montgomery Industrial School
for Girls, where she cleaned classrooms to pay her tuition. Later she attended
Booker T. Washington High School but was forced to leave to take care of
her sick mother. In 1932 she married Raymond Parks, to whom she would remain
married until his death in 1977. Though Raymond had very little formal
education, he was self-taught and supported his wife’s desire to return
to school to receive her high school diploma, which she did in 1934.
Mrs. Parks worked as a seamstress at a Montgomery department store in 1955. On December 1 of that year she boarded a city bus and sat in a row at the front of the "colored" section. The whites only section in the front of the bus filled up and a white man was left standing. The bus driver demanded that Mrs. Parks and three other patrons in the colored section give up their seats so the white man could sit. The other three people moved but Mrs. Parks had been pushed around enough and refused to yield her seat. She was arrested when the bus driver contacted the police and filed charges against her. Four days later she was found guilty of disorderly conduct and the Montgomery bus boycott began. Over a year later
the city was served with papers declaring segregation of bus service unconstitutional.
The next day Mrs. Parks boarded a bus and for the first time was allowed
to sit in any unoccupied seat. Her ordeal however was not over. She had
lost her seamstress job and was unable to find work. Her family was harassed
and threatened. In 1957, she moved along with her mother and husband to
Detroit where her younger brother Sylvester lived.
Source, and copyright: Rosa Parks Library and Museum. All Rights Reserved. |
