Rosa Parks: a Major Figure in The Civil Rights Movement

Rosa Parks was a major figure in the Civil Rights Movement. Her bravery inspired not only people in this nation but also people around the world. Rosa Parks was a great leader because she taught others to be brave when she stood up to a bus driver that told her to give up her seat.

Rosa Parks was born on February 4,1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. She had grown up with a very poor education. She was taught to read by her mother. She had gone to a segregated one-room school in Pine Level, Alabama. At age 11 she attended the city’s Industrial School for Girls. Once she hit the 11th grade she had dropped out to attend her sick grandmother and mother in Pine Level. In 1933, she had earned her high school degree with the help of her husband named Raymond Parks. On December 1,1955 Rosa Parks was riding the bus home after a long day at work. More and more white people had started to get on the bus. The bus driver had noticed that there was four white people standing up, so he had moved the line that separated the whites from the African-Americans back one row. Rosa and three other African-American men were then asked to move back one row.

Rosa had just stayed in her seat while the three other African-American men moved back. The bus driver had asked Rosa why she hadn’t moved back, and she told him that she was tired of giving in. The day that Rosa Parks was in jail for refusing to give up her seat the head of the NAACP group E.D. Nixon held a boycott. The boycott included asking members of the African-American community not to ride the bus. A result of this boycott was that the boycott had been successful. The other organizers of the NAACP believed that a longer boycott would be successful. The MIA knew that Rosa Parks’ case had provided the perfect chance to create a change that would stay forever. Due to the boycott, when Rosa went to court the next morning there were 500 local reporters that were there to support her. Rosa did end up being charged guilty of violating a local ordinance. They boycott went on for 381 successful days after her trial. The buses were very empty because of this boycott. The effort and participation that was put into the boycott had continued for several months. Black churches and E.D. Nixon, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s houses were burnt down to try and end the boycott. The city then had no choice but to lift enforcement of segregation on the buses. The boycott then ended on December 20,1956.