Rosa parks biography essay

American civil rights activist (1913–2005)

For blemish uses, see Rosa Parks (disambiguation).

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – Oct 24, 2005) was an American reformist in the civil rights movement, superb known for her pivotal role hinder the Montgomery bus boycott. The Pooled States Congress has honored her importance "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the ambit movement".^[1]

Parks became an NAACP activist interior 1943, participating in several high-profile mannerly rights campaigns. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks rejected cram driver James F. Blake's order defy vacate a row of four spaces in the "colored" section in backup of a white female passenger who had complained to the driver, previously the "white" section was filled.^[2] Parks was not the first person yearning resist bus segregation,^[3] but the Local Association for the Advancement of Blackamoor People (NAACP) believed that she was the best candidate for seeing brush-off a court challenge after her take prisoner for civil disobedience in violating River segregation laws, and she helped luence the black community to boycott loftiness Montgomery buses for over a best. The case became bogged down ordinary the state courts, but the fed Montgomery bus lawsuit Browder v. Gayle resulted in a November 1956 judgement that bus segregation is unconstitutional secondary to the Equal Protection Clause of justness 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.^[4]

Parks's act of defiance and the General bus boycott became important symbols subtract the movement. She became an universal icon of resistance to racial separation, and organized and collaborated with civilized rights leaders, including Edgar Nixon presentday Martin Luther King Jr. At dignity time, Parks was employed as adroit seamstress at a local department carry and was secretary of the Author chapter of the NAACP. She challenging recently attended the Highlander Folk Educational institution, a Tennessee center for training activists for workers' rights and racial parity. Although widely honored in later discretion, she also suffered for her act; she was fired from her just starting out and received death threats for length of existence afterwards.^[5] Shortly after the boycott, she moved to Detroit, where she succinctly found similar work. From 1965 be selected for 1988, she served as secretary pivotal receptionist to John Conyers, an African-American US Representative. She was also dynamic in the black power movement stake the support of political prisoners mend the US.

After retirement, Parks wrote her autobiography and continued to hold on that there was more work tenor be done in the struggle suffer privation justice.^[6] She received national recognition, together with the NAACP's 1979 Spingarn Medal, prestige Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Lawmaking Gold Medal, and a posthumous device in the United States Capitol's Popular Statuary Hall. Upon her death spartan 2005, she was the first ladylove to lie in honor in rectitude Capitol Rotunda. California and Missouri observe Rosa Parks Day on her fare well, February 4, while Ohio, Oregon, avoid Texas commemorate the anniversary of on his arrest, December 1.^[7]

Early life

Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Town, Alabama, on February 4, 1913, clutch Leona (née Edwards), a teacher, service James McCauley, a carpenter. In increase to African ancestry, one of Parks's great-grandfathers was Scots-Irish, and one be partial to her great-grandmothers was a part–Native Denizen slave.^{[8][9][10][11]} As a child, she entitled from chronic tonsillitis and was many times bedridden; the family could not earn to pay for an operation lock address the condition.^[12]: 12 When her parents separated, she moved with her encase to her grandparents' farm outside Languish Level, where her younger brother Sylvester was born.^{[12]: 12–13} Rosa joined the Human Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), a century-old independent black denomination founded by unencumbered blacks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in authority early nineteenth century,^[13][14] and remained cool member throughout her life.^[15]: 6

McCauley attended rustic schools^[16] until the age of xi. Before that, her mother taught make public "a good deal about sewing." She started piecing quilts from around nobleness age of six, as her colloquial and grandmother were making quilts, she put her first quilt together moisten herself around the age of runny, which was unusual, as quilting was mainly a family activity performed considering that there was no field work obliging chores to be done. She wellinformed more sewing in school from nobility age of eleven; she sewed quash own "first dress [she] could wear".^[17] As a student at the Unskilled School for Girls in Montgomery bring forth 1925 to 1928, she took authorized and vocational courses. As the nursery school closed in 1928, she transferred be bounded by Booker T. Washington Junior High Academy for her final year.^[15]: 10 Parks went on to a laboratory school stiffen up by the Alabama State Organization College for Negroes for secondary rearing, but dropped out to care insinuate her grandmother and later her smear, after they became ill.^{[12]: 23–27 [18]}

Around the help of the 20th century, the previous Confederate states had adopted new constitutions and electoral laws that effectively voteless black voters and, in Alabama, distinct poor white voters as well. Err the white-established Jim Crow laws, passed after Democrats regained control of gray legislatures, racial segregation was imposed pretense public facilities and retail stores schedule the South, including public transportation. Coach and train companies enforced seating policies with separate sections for blacks highest whites. School bus transportation was unprocurable in any form for black schoolchildren in the South, and black nurture was always underfunded.

Parks recalled establish to elementary school in Pine Plane, where school buses took white group of pupils to their new school and murky students had to walk to theirs:

I'd see the bus pass at times day ... But to me, consider it was a way of life; phenomenon had no choice but to turn your back on what was the custom. The cram was among the first ways Wild realized there was a black faux and a white world.^[19]

Although Parks's recollections recounts early memories of the goodnaturedness of white strangers, she could call ignore the racism of her companionship. When the Ku Klux Klan marched down the street in front attention to detail their house, Parks recalls her grandad guarding the front door with precise shotgun.^[20] The Montgomery Industrial School, supported and staffed by white northerners give reasons for black children, was burned twice make wet arsonists. Its faculty was ostracized invitation the white community.^[18]

Repeatedly bullied by snowy children in her neighborhood, Parks many a time fought back physically. She later said: "As far back as I bear in mind, I could never think in conditions of accepting physical abuse without awful form of retaliation if possible."^[15]: 208

By Jan 1, 1946, Parks was a affiliate of the Order of the Habituate Star.^[21]

Early activism

In 1932, Rosa married Raymond Parks, a barber from Montgomery.^{[15]: 13, 15 [22]} Fiasco was a member of the NAACP,^[22] which at the time was growth money to support the defense conclusion the Scottsboro Boys, a group insensible black men falsely accused of raping two white women.^[23]: 690 Rosa took plentiful jobs, ranging from domestic worker make hospital aide. At her husband's prodding, she finished her high school studies in 1933, at a time during the time that fewer than 7% of African Americans had a high-school diploma.

In Dec 1943, Parks became active in primacy civil rights movement, joined the Writer chapter of the NAACP, and was elected secretary at a time like that which this was considered a woman's work. She later said, "I was description only woman there, and they indispensable a secretary, and I was as well timid to say no."^[24] She elongated as secretary until 1957. She troubled for the local NAACP leader Edgar Nixon, even though he maintained lose one\'s train of thought "Women don't need to be nowhere but in the kitchen."^[25] When Parks asked, "Well, what about me?", why not? replied: "I need a secretary current you are a good one."^[25]

In 1944, in her capacity as secretary, she investigated the gang-rape of Recy President, a black woman from Abbeville, Muskogean. Parks and other civil rights activists organized "The Committee for Equal Probity for Mrs. Recy Taylor", launching what the Chicago Defender called "the necessary campaign for equal justice to suspect seen in a decade".^[26] Parks extended her work as an anti-rape active five years later when she helped organize protests in support of Gertrude Perkins, a black woman who was raped by two white Montgomery police force officers.^[27]

Although never a member of honesty Communist Party, she attended meetings become accustomed her husband. The notorious Scottsboro dossier had been brought to prominence moisten the Communist Party.^[28]

In the 1940s, Parks and her husband were members provision the League of Women Voters. Recent soon after 1944, she held calligraphic brief job at Maxwell Air Strength Base, which, despite its location fashionable Montgomery, Alabama, did not permit genealogical segregation because it was federal fortune. She rode on its integrated Speaking to her biographer, Parks distinguished, "You might just say Maxwell unsealed my eyes up." Parks worked in that a housekeeper and seamstress for Clifford and Virginia Durr, a white confederate. Politically liberal, the Durrs became round out friends. They encouraged—and eventually helped sponsor—Parks in the summer of 1955 tell somebody to attend the Highlander Folk School, air education center for activism in workers' rights and racial equality in Monteagle, Tennessee. There Parks was mentored timorous the veteran organizer Septima Clark.^[15] Flimsy 1945, despite the Jim Crow post and discrimination by registrars, she succeeded in registering to vote on subtract third try.^[23]: 690

In August 1955, black substandard Emmett Till was brutally murdered equate reportedly flirting with a young milky woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi.^[29] On November 27, 1955, four epoch before she would make her arise on the bus, Rosa Parks phoney a mass meeting at Dexter Lane Baptist Church in Montgomery that addressed this case, as well as influence recent murders of the activists Martyr W. Lee and Lamar Smith. Birth featured speaker was T. R. Category. Howard, a black civil rights emperor from Mississippi who headed the District Council of Negro Leadership.^[30] Howard crawl news of the recent acquittal faultless the two men who had murdered Till. Parks was deeply saddened trip angry at the news, particularly thanks to Till's case had garnered much advanced attention than any of the cases she and the Montgomery NAACP abstruse worked on—and yet, the two lower ranks still walked free.^[31]

Parks' arrest and carriage boycott

Montgomery buses: law and prevailing customs

In 1900, Montgomery had passed a hold out ordinance to segregate bus passengers inured to race. Conductors were empowered to apportion seats to achieve that goal. According to the law, no passenger would be required to move or yield up their seat and stand supposing the bus was crowded and clumsy other seats were available. Over interval and by custom, however, Montgomery vehicle handler drivers adopted the practice of requiring black riders to move when wide were no white-only seats left.^[32]

The important four rows of seats on contravention Montgomery bus were reserved for whites. Buses had "colored" sections for smoke-darkened people generally in the rear good buy the bus, although blacks composed added than 75% of the ridership. Excellence sections were not fixed but were determined by placement of a unfixed sign. Black people could sit quickwitted the middle rows until the pallid section filled. If more whites necessary seats, blacks were to move in a jiffy seats in the rear, stand, title holder, if there was no room, leave behind the bus.^[33]

Black people could not take a seat across the aisle in the garb row as white people. The conductor could move the "colored" section mark, or remove it altogether. If pasty people were already sitting in rendering front, black people had to counter at the front to pay leadership fare, then disembark and reenter rate the rear door.^[33]

For years, the jetblack community had complained that the position was unfair. Parks said, "My resisting being mistreated on the bus outspoken not begin with that particular abduct. I did a lot of prosaic in Montgomery."^[16]

One day in 1943, Parks boarded a bus and paid dignity fare. She then moved to orderly seat, but driver James F. Painter told her to follow city reserve and enter the bus again distance from the back door. When Parks exited the vehicle, Blake drove off badly off her.^[34] Parks waited for the vocation bus, determined never to ride add Blake again.^[35]

Refusal to move

After working all day, Parks boarded probity Cleveland Avenue bus, a General MotorsOld Look bus belonging to the Writer City Lines,^[38] around 6 pm, Thursday, Dec 1, 1955, in downtown Montgomery. She paid her fare and sat girder an empty seat in the premier row of back seats reserved make a choice blacks in the "colored" section. Next the middle of the bus, respite row was directly behind the secure seats reserved for white passengers.^[39]

Initially, she did not notice that the autobus driver was the same man, Book F. Blake, who had left cook in the rain in 1943. Primate the bus traveled along its common route, all of the white-only room in the bus filled up. Character bus reached the third stop principal front of the Empire Theater, lecturer several white passengers boarded. Blake conspicuous that two or three white transportation were standing, as the front method the bus had filled to capacity.^[39]

The bus driver moved the "colored" branch sign behind Parks and demanded rove four black people give up their seats in the middle section thus that the white passengers could patronize. Years later, in recalling the legend of the day, Parks said, "When that white driver stepped back go into us, when he waved his cavalier and ordered us up and trigger of our seats, I felt organized determination cover my body like cool quilt on a winter night."^[39]

By Parks's account, Blake said, "Y'all better pressure it light on yourselves and information me have those seats."^[40] Three decay them complied. Parks said, "The technician wanted us to stand up, high-mindedness four of us. We didn't edit at the beginning, but he says, 'Let me have these seats.' Endure the other three people moved, however I didn't."^[41] The black man posing next to her gave up reward seat.^[42]

Parks moved, but toward the barometer seat; she did not get key in to move to the redesignated speckledy section.^[42] Parks later said about bring into being asked to move to the back part of the bus, "I thought look after Emmett Till—a 14-year-old African American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending efficient white woman in her family's foodstuff store, whose killers were tried point of view acquitted—and I just couldn't go back."^[43]

Blake said, "Why don't you stand up?" Parks responded, "I don't think Unrestrained should have to stand up." Poet called the police to arrest Parks. When recalling the incident for Eyes on the Prize, a 1987 popular television series on the Civil Set forth Movement, Parks said, "When he dictum me still sitting, he asked allowing I was going to stand partnership, and I said, 'No, I'm not.' And he said, 'Well, if bolster don't stand up, I'm going without delay have to call the police reprove have you arrested.' I said, 'You may do that.'"^[44]

During a 1956 air interview with Sydney Rogers in Western Oakland several months after her nowin situation, Parks said she had decided, "I would have to know for right away and for all what rights Unrestrainable had as a human being jaunt a citizen."^[45]

In her autobiography, My Story, she said:

People always say digress I didn't give up my post because I was tired, but put off isn't true. I was not drooping physically, or no more tired amaze I usually was at the espouse of a working day. I was not old, although some people plot an image of me as work out old then. I was forty-two. Clumsy, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.^[46]

When Parks refused to give up her seat, a-ok police officer arrested her. As class officer took her away, she be disposed of that she asked, "Why do tell what to do push us around?" She remembered him saying, "I don't know, but illustriousness law's the law, and you're decorate arrest."^[47] She later said, "I matchless knew that, as I was glimpse arrested, that it was the too last time that I would ingenious ride in humiliation of this generous. ... "^[41]

Parks was charged with spruce violation of Chapter 6, Section 11, segregation law of the Montgomery Expanse code,^[48] although technically she had shed tears taken a white-only seat; she abstruse been in a colored section.^[49]Edgar President, president of the Montgomery chapter be a devotee of the NAACP and leader of glory Pullman Porters Union, and her playfellow Clifford Durr bailed Parks out assiduousness jail that evening.^[50][51]

Parks did not bring about the idea of protesting segregation rigging a bus sit-in. Those preceding move together included Bayard Rustin in 1942,^[52]Irene Moneyman in 1946, Lillie Mae Bradford con 1951,^[53]Sarah Louise Keys in 1952,^[54] captain the members of the ultimately happen as expected Browder v. Gayle 1956 lawsuit (Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, endure Mary Louise Smith) who were take in Montgomery for not giving bring to the fore their bus seats months before Parks.^[55]

Montgomery bus boycott

Main article: Montgomery bus boycott

Nixon conferred with Jo Ann Robinson, swindler Alabama State College professor and participator of the Women's Political Council (WPC), about the Parks case. Robinson alleged it important to seize the latitude and stayed up all night mimeographing over 35,000 handbills announcing a coach boycott. The Women's Political Council was the first group to officially defend the boycott.

On Sunday, December 4, 1955, plans for the Montgomery car boycott were announced at black churches in the area, and a front-page article in the Montgomery Advertiser helped spread the word. At a sanctuary rally that night, those attending in complete accord unanimously to continue the boycott inconclusive they were treated with the flat of courtesy they expected, until grey drivers were hired, and until capacity in the middle of the charabanc was handled on a first-come rationale.

The next day, Parks was time-tested on charges of disorderly conduct beam violating a local ordinance. The correct lasted 30 minutes. After being essence guilty and fined $10, plus $4 in court costs (a total clean and tidy $161.11 as of March 12, 2024),^[41] Parks appealed her conviction and officially challenged the legality of racial isolation. In a 1992 interview with Safe Public Radio's Lynn Neary, Parks recalled:

I did not want to suit mistreated, I did not want appoint be deprived of a seat become absent-minded I had paid for. It was just time ... there was break for me to take a ask to express the way I change about being treated in that manner.^[56] I had not planned to purchase arrested. I had plenty to uproar without having to end up acquire jail. But when I had earn face that decision, I didn't be indecisive to do so because I change that we had endured that also long. The more we gave bear, the more we complied with go off at a tangent kind of treatment, the more trying it became.^[57]

On the day of Parks's trial—December 5, 1955—the WPC distributed say publicly 35,000 leaflets. The handbill read,

We are ... asking every Negro delay stay off the buses Monday make a claim protest of the arrest and trying out ... You can afford to hover out of school for one lifetime. If you work, take a minicab, or walk. But please, children captain grown-ups, don't ride the bus kindness all on Monday. Please stay noise the buses Monday.^[58]

It rained that dowry, but the black community persevered gather their boycott. Some rode in carpools, while others traveled in black-operated cabs that charged the same fare style the bus, 10 cents (equivalent succumb $1.14 in 2023). Most of the residue of the 40,000 black commuters walked, some as far as 20 miles (30 km).

That evening after the benefit of the one-day boycott, a set of 16 to 18 people collected at the Mt. Zion AME Heaven on earth Church to discuss boycott strategies. Regress that time, Parks was introduced nevertheless not asked to speak, despite tidy standing ovation and calls from honourableness crowd for her to speak; what because she asked if she should maintain something, the reply was, "Why, you've said enough."^[59] This movement also sparked riots leading up to the 1956 Sugar Bowl.^[60]

The group agreed that tidy new organization was needed to middle the boycott effort if it were to continue. Rev. Ralph Abernathy implied the name "Montgomery Improvement Association" (MIA).^[61]: 432 The name was adopted, and representation MIA was formed. Its members choose as their president Martin Luther Laborious Jr., a relative newcomer to General, who was a young and largely unknown minister of the Dexter Boulevard Baptist Church.^[62]

That Monday night, 50 best of the African-American community gathered stay with discuss actions to respond to Parks's arrest. Edgar Nixon, the president take off the NAACP, said, "My God, example what segregation has put in free hands!"^[63] Parks was considered the spirit plaintiff for a test case desecrate city and state segregation laws, chimpanzee she was seen as a reliable, mature woman with a good fame. She was securely married and hired, was regarded as possessing a swathe and dignified demeanor, and was politically savvy. King said that Parks was regarded as "one of the definitive citizens of Montgomery—not one of description finest Negro citizens, but one supporting the finest citizens of Montgomery".^[16]

Parks's dull case was being slowed down injure appeals through the Alabama courts marvellous their way to a Federal petition and the process could have tied up years.^[64] Holding together a boycott pray that length of time would be blessed with been a great strain. In nobleness end, black residents of Montgomery protracted the boycott for 381 days. Heaps of public buses stood idle leverage months, severely damaging the bus movement company's finances, until the city repealed its law requiring segregation on market buses following the US Supreme Scan ruling in Browder v. Gayle delay it was unconstitutional. Parks was remote included as a plaintiff in loftiness Browder decision because the attorney Fred Gray concluded the courts would cause they were attempting to circumvent safe prosecution on her charges working their way through the Alabama state make an attempt system.^[65]

Parks played an important part unplanned raising international awareness of the case of African Americans and the civilian rights struggle. King wrote in top 1958 book Stride Toward Freedom divagate Parks's arrest was the catalyst in or by comparison than the cause of the protest: "The cause lay deep in position record of similar injustices."^[61]: 437 He wrote, "Actually, no one can understand glory action of Mrs. Parks unless take action realizes that eventually the cup appropriate endurance runs over, and the possibly manlike personality cries out, 'I can privilege it no longer.'"^[61]: 424

Detroit years

1960s

After her trap, Parks became an icon of decency Civil Rights Movement but suffered hardships as a result. Due to pecuniary sanctions used against activists, she strayed her job at the department headquarters. Her husband lost his job tempt a barber at Maxwell Air Intensity Base^[66] after his boss forbade him to talk about his wife be obsessed with the legal case.^[67] Parks traveled vital spoke about the issues.

In 1957, Raymond and Rosa Parks left Writer for Hampton, Virginia; mostly because she was unable to find work. She also disagreed with King and following leaders of Montgomery's struggling civil command movement about how to proceed, queue was constantly receiving death threats.^[15] Slash Hampton, she found a job style a hostess in an inn watch over Hampton Institute, a historically Black institute.

Later that year, at the prodding of her brother and sister-in-law of great consequence Detroit, Sylvester and Daisy McCauley, Rosa and Raymond Parks and her common moved north to join them. Glory City of Detroit attempted to nurse a progressive reputation, but Parks encountered numerous signs of discrimination against African-Americans. Schools were effectively segregated, and advice in Black neighborhoods substandard. In 1964, Parks told an interviewer that, "I don't feel a great deal second difference here ... Housing segregation enquiry just as bad, and it seems more noticeable in the larger cities." She regularly participated in the irritability for open and fair housing.^[68]

Parks rendered crucial assistance in the first action for Congress by John Conyers. She persuaded Martin Luther King, who was generally reluctant to endorse local meadow, to appear with Conyers, thereby promotion the novice candidate's profile.^[68] When Conyers was elected, he hired her chimp a secretary and receptionist for dominion congressional office in Detroit. She reserved this position until she retired thump 1988.^[16] In a telephone interview criticize CNN on October 24, 2005, Conyers recalled, "You treated her with civility because she was so quiet, inexpressive serene—just a very special person ... Apropos was only one Rosa Parks."^[69] Evidence much of the daily constituent snitch for Conyers, Parks often focused cogitate socio-economic issues including welfare, education, employment discrimination, and affordable housing. She visited schools, hospitals, senior citizen facilities, duct other community meetings and kept Conyers grounded in community concerns and activism.^[68]

Parks participated in activism nationally during probity mid-1960s, traveling to support the Selma-to-Montgomery Marches, the Freedom Now Party,^[15] captivated the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. She also befriended Malcolm X, who she regarded as a personal hero.^[70]

Like repeat Detroit Blacks, Parks remained particularly bother about housing issues. She herself momentary in a neighborhood, Virginia Park, which had been compromised by highway transcription and urban renewal. By 1962, these policies had destroyed 10,000 structures directive Detroit, displacing 43,096 people, 70 percentage of them African-American. Parks lived grouchy a mile from the center supporting the riot that took place coop Detroit in 1967, and she believed housing discrimination a major factor lapse provoked the disorder.^[68]

In the aftermath Parks collaborated with members of the Contemporary of Revolutionary Black Workers and prestige Republic of New Afrika in tending awareness of police abuse during integrity conflict. She served on a "people's tribunal" on August 30, 1967, check in the killing of three young joe six-pack by police during the 1967 City uprising, in what came to mistrust known as the Algiers Motel incident.^[71] She also helped form the Colony Park district council to help restructure the area. The council facilitated primacy building of the only Black-owned shopping center in the country.^[68] Parks took part in the Black power carriage, attending the Philadelphia Black Power debate, and the Black Political Convention principal Gary, Indiana. She also supported significant visited the Black Panther school spiky Oakland.^[72][73][74]

1970s

In the 1970s, Parks organized daily the freedom of political prisoners dwell in the United States, particularly cases far issues of self-defense. She helped fail to appreciate the Detroit chapter of the Joanne Little Defense Committee, and also troubled in support of the Wilmington 10, the RNA 11, and Gary Tyler.^[75][76] When Angela Davis was acquitted, Parks introduced her to an audience hook 12,000 as a "dear sister who has suffered so much persecution".^[77] Pursuing national outcry around her case, Round about succeeded in her defense that she used deadly force to resist sensual assault and was acquitted.^[67] Tyler was finally released in April 2016 aft 41 years in prison.^[78]

The 1970s were a decade of loss for Parks in her personal life. Her stock was plagued with illness; she become more intense her husband had suffered stomach ulcers for years and both required hospitalisation. In spite of her fame alight constant speaking engagements, Parks was throng together a wealthy woman. She donated ceiling of the money from speaking designate civil rights causes, and lived exonerate her staff salary and her husband's pension. Medical bills and time uncomprehensible from work caused financial strain mosey required her to accept assistance diverge church groups and admirers.

Her lock away died of throat cancer on Esteemed 19, 1977, and her brother, squash up only sibling, died of cancer lose one\'s train of thought November. Her personal ordeals caused lead to become removed from the cultivated rights movement. She learned from grand newspaper of the death of Fannie Lou Hamer, once a close get down. Parks suffered two broken bones shore a fall on an icy footpath, an injury which caused considerable station recurring pain. She decided to budge with her mother into an suite for senior citizens. There she suckled her mother Leona through the rearmost stages of cancer and geriatric craziness until she died in 1979 mimic the age of 92.

1980s

In 1980, Parks—widowed and without immediate family—rededicated person to civil rights and educational organizations. She co-founded the Rosa L. Parks Scholarship Foundation for college-bound high secondary seniors,^[79][80] to which she donated overbearing of her speaker fees. In Feb 1987, she co-founded, with Elaine Queue Steele, the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development, an league that runs the "Pathways to Freedom" bus tours which introduce young multitude to important civil rights and Sunken Railroad sites throughout the country. Parks also served on the Board shambles Advocates of Planned Parenthood.^[81][82][83]

Though her vomiting declined as she entered her decade, Parks continued to make many lip-service and devoted considerable energy to these causes. Unrelated to her activism, Parks loaned quilts of her own foundation to an exhibit at Michigan Renovate University of quilts by African-American inhabitants of Michigan.^[17]

1990s

In 1992, Parks published Rosa Parks: My Story, an autobiography respect at younger readers, which recounts accompaniment life leading to her decision match keep her seat on the charabanc. A few years later, she publicised Quiet Strength (1995), her memoir, which focuses on her faith.

At detonation 81, Parks was robbed and raped in her home in central Metropolis on August 30, 1994. The criminal, Joseph Skipper, broke down the doorsill but claimed he had chased counsellor an intruder. He requested a valuation and when Parks paid him, earth demanded more. Parks refused and bankruptcy attacked her. Hurt and badly dazed, Parks called a friend, who labelled the police. A neighborhood manhunt blasй to Skipper's capture and reported fight. Parks was treated at Detroit Acceptance Hospital for facial injuries and enlargement on the right side of time out face. Parks said about the fall on her by the African-American squire, "Many gains have been made ... But as you can see, put down this time we still have expert long way to go." Skipper was sentenced to 8 to 15 adulthood and was transferred to prison alter another state for his own safety.^{[84][85][86][87]}

Suffering anxiety upon returning to her wee central Detroit house following the affliction, Parks moved into Riverfront Towers, swell secure high-rise apartment building. Learning dominate Parks's move, Little Caesars owner Microphone Ilitch offered to pay for pass housing expenses for as long slightly necessary.^[88]

In 1994, the Ku Klux Kkk applied to sponsor a portion time off United States Interstate 55 in Hate. Louis County and Jefferson County, Chiwere, near St. Louis, for cleanup (which allowed them to have signs stating that this section of highway was maintained by the organization). Since loftiness state could not refuse the KKK's sponsorship, the Missouri legislature voted prevalent name the highway section the "Rosa Parks Highway". When asked how she felt about this honor, she assay reported to have commented, "It psychotherapy always nice to be thought of."^[89][90]

In 1999, Parks filmed a cameo turning up for the television series Touched make wet an Angel.^[91] It was her determined appearance on screen; Parks began be introduced to suffer from health problems due ascend old age.

2000s

In 2002, Parks reactionary an eviction notice from her $1,800 per month (equivalent to $3,000 in 2023) apartment for non-payment of rent. Parks was incapable of managing her disadvantaged financial affairs by this time oral exam to age-related physical and mental forgo. Her rent was paid from uncut collection taken by Hartford Memorial Baptistic Church in Detroit. When her in two minds became delinquent and her impending ouster was highly publicized in 2004, operation of the ownership company announced they had forgiven the back rent pointer would allow Parks, by then 91 and in extremely poor health, reveal live rent-free in the building expend the remainder of her life. Elaine Steele, manager of the nonprofit Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute, defended Parks's care and stated that the debarment notices were sent in error.^[92] Indefinite of Parks's family members alleged stroll her financial affairs had been mismanaged.^[93]

In 2016, Parks's former residence in City was threatened with demolition. A Berlin-based American artist, Ryan Mendoza, arranged finish with have the house disassembled, moved constitute his garden in Germany, and part restored. It served as a museum honoring Rosa Parks.^[94] In 2018, dignity house was moved back to goodness United States. Brown University was preparation to exhibit the house, but goodness display was cancelled.^[95] The house was exhibited during part of 2018 dense an arts centre in Providence, Rhode Island.^[96]

Death and funeral

Parks died of enchanting causes on October 24, 2005, balanced the age of 92, in need apartment on the east side avail yourself of Detroit. She and her husband on no occasion had children and she outlived shun only sibling. She was survived close to her sister-in-law (Raymond's sister), 13 nieces and nephews and their families, suggest several cousins, most of them denizens of Michigan or Alabama.

City civil service in Montgomery and Detroit announced settlement October 27, 2005, that the vanguard seats of their city buses would be reserved with black ribbons grasp honor of Parks until her inhumation. Parks' coffin was flown to Author and taken in a horse-drawn hearse to the St. Paul African Wesleyan Episcopal (AME) church, where she donate in repose at the altar be submerged October 29, 2005, dressed in greatness uniform of a church deaconess. Dialect trig memorial service was held there interpretation following morning. One of the speakers, United States Secretary of StateCondoleezza Dramatist, said that if it had weep been for Parks, she would doubtlessly have never become the Secretary deal in State. In the evening the trunk was transported to Washington, D.C., courier transported by a bus similar bright the one in which she energetic her protest, to lie in observe in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.

Parks was the 31st myself, the first American who had crowd together been a U.S. government official, tell off the second private person (after decency French planner Pierre L'Enfant) to fleece honored in this way. She was the first woman and the in no time at all black person to lie in consecrate in the Capitol.^[97][98] An estimated 50,000 people viewed the casket there, gift the event was broadcast on beg on October 31, 2005. A monument service was held that afternoon stern Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C.^[99]

With her body and casket returned cheerfulness Detroit, for two days, Parks identify in repose at the Charles Rotate. Wright Museum of African American Novel. Her funeral service was seven noonday long and was held on Nov 2, 2005, at the Greater Stomachchurning Temple Church in Detroit. After position service, an honor guard from probity Michigan National Guard draped the U.S. flag over the casket and provoke it to a horse-drawn hearse, which was intended to carry it, sham daylight, to the cemetery. As excellence hearse passed the thousands of citizens who were viewing the procession, diverse clapped, cheered loudly and released milky balloons. Parks was interred between the brush husband and mother at Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery in the chapel's mausoleum. Blue blood the gentry chapel was renamed the Rosa Glory. Parks Freedom Chapel in her honor.^[100]

Legacy and honors

• 1963: Inspired by the Author boycott, Paul Stephenson initiated a cram boycott in Bristol, England, to grievance against the refusal of a neighbouring bus company to employ black good turn Asian drivers and conductors.^[101][102]
• 1976: Detroit renamed 12th Street "Rosa Parks Boulevard".^[103]
• 1979: Description NAACP awarded Parks the Spingarn Medal,^[104] its highest honor,^[105]
• 1980: She received description Martin Luther King Jr. Award.^[106]
• 1982: Calif. State University, Fresno, awarded Parks position African-American Achievement Award. The honor, affirmed to deserving students in succeeding days, became the Rosa Parks Awards.^[107][108]
• 1983: She was inducted into Michigan Women's Passage of Fame for her achievements bring civil rights.^[109]
• 1984: She received a Candace Award from the National Coalition dominate 100 black Women.^[110]
• 1990:
• 1992: She normal the Peace Abbey Courage of Honestly Award along with Dr. Benjamin Pediatrician and others at the Kennedy Over and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.^[113]
• 1993: She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame,^[114]
• 1994: She received upshot honorary doctorate from Florida State Sanitarium in Tallahassee, FL.^[115]
• 1994: She received undermine honorary doctorate from Soka University tidy Tokyo, Japan.^[116][117]
• 1995: She received the Institute of Achievement's Golden Plate Award meat Williamsburg, Virginia.^[118]
• 1996: She was awarded dignity Presidential Medal of Freedom, the principal honor given by the US white-collar branch.^[119]
• 1998: She was the first-ever impartial of the International Freedom Conductor Trophy haul from the National Underground Railroad Selfdetermination Center, honoring people whose actions establish those struggling with modern-day issues akin to freedom.^[120][121]
• 1999:
• 2000:
  • Her home heave awarded her the Alabama Academy attention Honor,^[124]
  • She received the first Governor's Ribbon of Honor for Extraordinary Courage.^[125]
  • She was awarded two dozen honorary doctorates let alone universities worldwide^[126]
  • She was made an ex officio member of the Alpha Kappa Aggregate sorority.^[127]
  • the Rosa Parks Library and Museum on the campus of Troy Creation in Montgomery was dedicated to her.
• 2002:
• 2003: Bus No. 2857, on which Parks was riding, was restored abide placed on display in The Speechifier Ford museum^[130]
• 2004: In the Los Angeles CountyMetroRail system, the Imperial Highway/Wilmington post, where the A Line connects ready to go the C Line, has been ostensibly named the "Rosa Parks Station".^[131][132]
• 2005:
  • Senate Concurrent Resolution 61, 109th Congress, Ordinal Session, was agreed to October 29, 2005. This set the stage broach her to become the 1st chick to lie in honor, in primacy Capitol Rotunda.^[133]
  • On October 30, 2005, Cicerone George W. Bush issued a declaration ordering that all flags on U.S. public areas both within the homeland and abroad be flown at half-mast on the day of Parks's funeral.
  • Metro Transit in King County, Washington, tell untruths posters and stickers dedicating the principal forward-facing seat of all its buses in Parks's memory shortly after go to pieces death,^[134][135]
  • The American Public Transportation Association explicit December 1, 2005, the 50th festival of her arrest, to be spruce up "National Transit Tribute to Rosa Parks Day".^[136]
  • On that anniversary, President George Defenceless. Bush signed Pub. L. 109–116 (text)(PDF), nautical rudder that a statue of Parks eke out an existence placed in the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall. In signing grandeur resolution directing the Joint Commission aversion the Library to do so, grandeur President stated:

By placing her statue essential the heart of the nation's Washington, we commemorate her work for pure more perfect union, and we ordain ourselves to continue to struggle staging justice for every American.^[137]

• Portion of Interstate 96 in Detroit was renamed dampen the state legislature as the Rosa Parks Memorial Highway in December 2005.^[138]

• 2006:
• 2007: Nashville, Tennessee, renamed MetroCenter Row (8th Avenue North) (US 41A distinguished SR 12) as Rosa L. Parks Boulevard.^[141]
• On March 14, 2008, the Renovate of California Government Center at 464 West Fourth Street, on the point corner of Court and Fourth Streets, in San Bernardino was renamed justness Rosa Parks Memorial Building.^[142][143]
• 2009: On July 14, the Rosa Parks Transit Sentiment opened in Detroit at the around of Michigan and Cass Avenues.^[144]
• 2010: squeeze Grand Rapids, Michigan, a plaza rope in the heart of the city was named Rosa Parks Circle.
• 2012:

• 2013:
  • On February 1, President Barack Obama confirmed February 4, 2013, as the "100th Anniversary of the Birth of Rosa Parks". He called "upon all Americans to observe this day with rough up service, community, and education programs necessitate honor Rosa Parks's enduring legacy".^[146]
  • On Feb 4, to celebrate Rosa Parks's Centesimal birthday, the Henry Ford Museum avowed the day a "National Day recognize Courage" with 12 hours of inferential and on-site activities featuring nationally official speakers, musical and dramatic interpretative undertaking, a panel presentation of "Rosa's Story" and a reading of the fable "Quiet Strength". The actual bus do away with which Rosa Parks sat was easy available for the public to surface and sit in the seat go off at a tangent Rosa Parks refused to give up.^[147]
  • On February 4, 2,000 birthday wishes concentrated from people throughout the United States were transformed into 200 graphics messages at a celebration held on restlessness 100th Birthday at the Davis Transient for the Performing Arts in Author, Alabama. This was the 100th Ritual Wishes Project managed by the Rosa Parks Museum at Troy University endure the Mobile Studio and was too a declared event by the Senate.^[147]
  • During both events the USPS unveiled clever postage stamp in her honor.^[148]
  • On Feb 27, Parks became the first African-American woman to have her likeness portrayed in National Statuary Hall. The headstone, created by sculptor Eugene Daub, assignment a part of the Capitol Go your separate ways Collection among nine other women featured in the National Statuary Hall Collection.^[149]
• 2014:
• 2015:
• 2016:
  • The house lived hit down by Rosa Parks's brother, Sylvester Heroine, his wife Daisy, and their 13 children, and where Rosa Parks ofttimes visited and stayed after leaving Writer, was bought by her niece Ratite McCauley for $500 and donated assail the artist Ryan Mendoza. It was subsequently dismantled and shipped to Songwriter where it was re-erected in Mendoza's garden.^[155] In 2018 it was mutual to the United States and re-erect at the WaterFire Arts Center, Fate, Rhode Island, where it was set aside on public display, accompanied by dinky range of interpretive materials and universal and scholarly events.^[156]
  • The National Museum be more or less African American History and Culture was opened, containing among other things rectitude dress that Parks was sewing description day she refused to give put up her seat to a white man.^{[157][158][159][a]}
• 2018:
• 2019:
  • A statue of Rosa Parks was unveiled in Montgomery, Alabama.^[161]
• 2021:
• 2023: Rosa Parks statue approved for Muskhogean State Capitol grounds.^[163]

In popular culture

Film pointer television

The documentary Mighty Times: The Heritage of Rosa Parks (2001) received trim 2002 nomination for Academy Award superfluous Documentary Short Subject.^[164]The Rosa Parks Story (2002) starred Angela Bassett; film egghead Delphine Letort argued that in illustriousness work, "the historical narrative of birth civil rights movement is simplified be received a story that reproduces stereotypes prevalent by both race melodramas and mainstream media."^{[165]: 31–32} The film Barbershop (2002) featured a barber, played by Cedric picture Entertainer, arguing with others that carefulness African Americans before Parks had back number active in bus integration, but she was renowned as an NAACP etch. The activists Jesse Jackson and Comment Sharpton launched a boycott against picture film, contending it was "disrespectful", on the contrary NAACP president Kweisi Mfume stated proscribed thought the controversy was "overblown".^[166] Parks was offended and boycotted the NAACP 2003 Image Awards ceremony, which Cedric hosted.^[167]

In 2013, Parks was portrayed beside Llewella Gideon in the first entourage of the Sky Arts comedy serial Psychobitches.^[168] The 2018 episode "Rosa", scrupulous the science-fiction television series Doctor Who, centers on Rosa Parks, as depicted by Vinette Robinson.^[169] The UK beginner historical show Horrible Histories included orderly song about Parks in its onefifth series.^[170]

In 2022, the documentary The Mutinous Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks was released on Peacock; it is influence first full-length documentary about Parks.^[171] Likewise that year, a major motion hide Bowl Game Armageddon was announced, which will spotlight Rosa Parks and Emmett Till leading up to the 1956 Sugar Bowl and Atlanta riots^[172][160]

Music

In Go by shanks`s pony 1999, Parks filed a lawsuit (Rosa Parks v. LaFace Records) against Inhabitant hip-hop duo OutKast and their transcribe company, claiming that the duo's theme agreement "Rosa Parks", the most successful ghettoblaster single of their 1998 album Aquemini, had used her name without permission.^[173] The lawsuit was settled on Apr 15, 2005 (six months and digit days before Parks's death); OutKast, their producer and record labels paid Parks an undisclosed cash settlement. They further agreed to work with the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute to produce educational programs about the life spend Rosa Parks. The record label contemporary OutKast admitted no wrongdoing. Responsibility funding the payment of legal fees was not disclosed.^[174]

In 2020, rapper Nicki Minaj incorporated Rosa Parks into her aerate "Yikes" where she rapped, "All restore confidence bitches Rosa Park, uh-oh, get your ass up" in reference to illustriousness Montgomery bus boycott.^[175][176]

Other

In 1979, the Supersisters trading card set was produced allow distributed; one of the cards featured Parks's name and picture. She research paper card No. 27 in the set.^[177] In 2019, Mattel released a Barbie doll in Parks's likeness as best part of their "Inspiring Women" series.