One person can make a difference in the world

 The Modern Civil Rights Movement began on July 26 1948 when President Truman signed an. The   Executive Order stated it is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin." (Civil Rights Movement Timeline). A few years after on December first 1954 Rosa Parks an unknown seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. She defended her civil rights by refusing to follow Jim Crow laws, and sparked the change in the way African-Americans are viewed today. This brave woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested and fined for violating a city ordinance, but her lonely act of defiance began a movement that ended legal segregation in America, and made her an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere. Rosa Parks  changed the world with her influence on the Civil Rights Movement.  

Rosa Parks was born on February fourth, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. James McCauley, her father was a carpenter, and her mother Leona McCauley, was a teacher. At the age of eleven she enrolled in the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private school founded by liberal-minded women from the northern United States. The school's philosophy of self-worth was consistent with Leona McCauley's advice to "take advantage of the opportunities, no matter how few they were"

(Academy of Achievement).). 

 Rosa’s mother, believed in freedom and equality.  She thought that since the emancipation happened, there was no reason to treat African Americans in the manner they were being treated. Rosa looked up to her mother and absorbed the values she exemplified as her own and this is the root of all Rosa did and stood for in her life. 

In Montgomery, where Rosa Parks grew up, there were legally enforced segregation laws.  Rosa struggled against them for a long time and her chance to rebel finally came when a bus driver told her to give her seat to a white man.  This, action by Rosa Parks made Martin Luther King Jr. a prominent figure and he led protestors in the bus boycott.  Martin Luther King, Jr., became a prominent Civil Rights leader as international attention focused on Montgomery. The bus boycott demonstrated the potential for nonviolent mass protest to successfully challenge racial segregation and served as an example for other southern campaigns that followed. In Stride Toward Freedom, King’s 1958 memoir of the boycott, he declared the real meaning of the Montgomery bus boycott to be the power of a growing self-respect to animate the struggle for civil rights ("Martin Luther King JR. and the struggle for freedom").

The Montgomery bus boycott began years before the arrest of Rosa Parks. The Women’s Political Council (WPC), a group of black professionals founded in 1946, had already turned their attention to Jim Crow practices on the Montgomery city buses. In a meeting with Mayor W. A. Gayle in March 1954, the council's members outlined the changes they sought for Montgomery’s bus system: no one standing over empty seats; a decree that black individuals not be made to pay at the front of the bus and enter from the rear; and a policy that would require buses to stop at every corner in black residential areas, as they did in white communities. When the meeting failed to produce any meaningful change, WPC president Jo Ann Robinson reiterated the council’s requests in a  21 May letter to Mayor Gayle, telling him, ‘‘there has been talk from twenty-five or more local organizations of planning a city-wide boycott of busses’’(‘‘A Letter from the Women’s Political Council’’). ("Martin Luther King JR. and the struggle for freedom")

King recalled in his memoir that ‘‘Mrs. Parks was ideal for the role assigned to her by history,’’ and because ‘‘her character was impeccable and her dedication deep-rooted’’ she was ‘‘one of the most respected people in the Negro community’’ ("Martin Luther King JR. and the struggle for freedom") Ann Robinson and the WPC responded to Parks’ arrest by calling for a one-day protest of the city’s buses on 5 December 1955. Ann Robinson prepared a series of leaflets at Alabama State College and organized groups to distribute them throughout the black community. Meanwhile, after securing bail for Parks with Clifford and Virginia Durr, E. D. Nixon, past leader of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), began to call local black leaders, including Ralph Abernathy and King, to organize a planning meeting. On 2 December, black ministers and leaders met at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and agreed to publicize the 5 December boycott. The planned protest received unexpected publicity in the weekend newspapers and in radio and television reports. ("Martin Luther King JR. and the struggle for freedom").

On 5 December, 90 percent of Montgomery’s black citizens stayed off the buses. That afternoon, the city’s ministers and leaders met to discuss the possibility of extending the boycott into a long-term campaign. During this meeting the MIA was formed, and King was elected president. Parks recalled: ‘‘The advantage of having Dr. King as president was that he was so new to Montgomery and to civil rights work that he hadn’t been there long enough to make any strong friends or enemies’’ ("Martin Luther King JR. and the struggle for freedom").

The demands were not met, and Montgomery’s black residents stayed off the buses through 1956, despite efforts by city officials and white citizens to defeat the boycott. After the city began to penalize black taxi drivers for aiding the boycotters, the MIA organized a carpool. Following the advice of T. J. Jemison, who had organized a carpool during a 1953 bus boycott in Baton Rouge, the MIA developed an intricate carpool system of about 300 cars. Robert Hughes and others from the Alabama Council for Human Relations organized meetings between the MIA and city officials, but no agreements were reached. ("Martin Luther King JR. and the struggle for freedom")

Segregation (Jim Crow laws) Rosa had lived in the segregated South for all her life and she had enough of it.  With her mother’s passion for equality, Rosa was one of the few blacks that stood up for what all of them knew was right. Parks knew that when she refused to stand up on that bus, she was refusing to follow all the ridiculous segregation rules. There was no more slavery and blacks should have been treated equally then.  Not every person was going to accept them, but they should have been treated equal on a technical level. They didn’t even have that and Rosa was needed to bring about an amendment. Without Rosa Parks, the Civil Rights movement would not be as powerful as it was. It may not have even existed. Imagine how different the world would be without the Civil Rights Movement. African Americans maybe not have had as many rights if she didn’t give up her seat. 

Rosa Parks used her new influence to later in life establish the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. She wanted to guide our country’s youth so they can find God and prevent further discrimination from happening. The programs teach children about the Civil Rights Movement, why it was so important, and hopefully inspire them to, in the future, stand up for what they believe is genuinely right. Rosa was very good at teaching the most important thing of all: awareness.  She saw that our future is the children so her program teaches them about equality at an early age. (Academy of Achievement). 

After leaving the Maxwell Air Force Base, Rosa Parks took a job working for a couple named Clifford and Virginia Durr. The Durr's were a well to do white couple who were also politically liberal. After becoming fast friends with Rosa, they sponsored her attendance at the Highlander Folk School in the summer of 1955. The school was a center set up to educate the black community about racial equality and the rights of workers. ("http://www.rosaparksfacts.com/rosa-parks-civil-rights-movement.")

Rosa Parks changed the world with her influence in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa’s case gets to the Supreme Court and they declare bus segregation unconstitutional. This may seem small, but it opened the door for other segregation and Jim Crow laws to be abolished and paved the way for African-American voting rights and other civil rights movements. Rosa Parks showed it was possible for anyone to be a hero when she made her stand. Rosa Parks was just a working class black woman; back then, that didn’t count for much.  She still stood her ground and made a difference in her society. Rosa Parks has let it be known that every day; anybody can make a difference and stand up for what they believe in. She has inspired many people and is a great role model for a young person to look up to.

Mrs. Parks recalled in an interview: “Back then, Opportunities were few.” "We didn't have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next. I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down." In the same interview, she cited her lifelong acquaintance with fear as the reason for her relative fearlessness in deciding to appeal her conviction during the bus boycott. "I didn't have any special fear," she said. "It was more of a relief to know that I wasn't alone" (Academy of Achievement).

After attending Alabama State Teachers College, the young Rosa settled in Montgomery, with her husband, Raymond Parks. The couple joined the local chapter of the NAACP and worked quietly for many years to improve the lot of African-Americans in the segregated south. (Academy of Achievement).

Mrs. Parks recalled "I worked on numerous cases with the NAACP,", "but we did not get the publicity. There were cases of flogging, peonage, murder, and rape. We didn't seem to have too many successes. It was more a matter of trying to challenge the powers that be, and to let it be known that we did not wish to continue being second-class citizens." (Academy of Achievement). Rosa Parks came from a rural Alabama family that had always been concerned about the question of social justice. After moving to Montgomery, she became a quiet yet conspicuous advocate for human and civil rights within the faith community, and as a member of the NAACP. Mrs. Parks, by then the wife of Raymond, had already protested segregated seating on buses in 1943, 12 years before that eventful day of December 1, 1955. She became secretary of her NAACP chapter. Mrs. Parks worked with one of the most influential leaders in the Black community, namely E.D. Nixon, head of the NAACP in Montgomery. Mr. Nixon was also a member of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the most powerful Black labor union ever.

The NAACP stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Many of the people who took place in the Montgomery Bus Boycott were active members in the NAACP. Black activists had begun to build a case to challenge state bus segregation laws around the arrest of a 15-year-old girl, Claudette Colvin, a student at Booker T. Washington High School in Montgomery. On March 2, 1955, Colvin was handcuffed, arrested and forcibly removed from a public bus when she refused to give up her seat to a white man. She claimed that her constitutional rights were being violated. Colvin refused to give up her seat along with an elderly black woman. When the bus driver called the police, the elderly woman gave up her seat, but Claudette refused to be tormented. Claudette's determination and perseverance lead to her arrest, but contributed to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. At the time, Colvin was an active member in the NAACP Youth Council, a group to which Rosa Parks served as Advisor. Ralph Abernathy conducted the first meeting to protest against bus segregation (as a result of Rosa Parks' arrest) on December 1, 1955. (Abdul –Jabbar 190- 200).   Ralph did Justice to the NAACP by organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Many decisions contributed to the advancement of African American rights. The sacrifice of so many people allowed America to prosper from being, once a segregated country, to a country of diversity.

Under the system of segregation used on Montgomery buses, white people who boarded the bus took seats in the front rows, filling the bus toward the back. Black people who boarded the bus took seats in the back rows, filling the bus toward the front. Eventually, the two sections would meet, and the bus would be full. If other black people boarded the bus, they were required to stand. If another white person boarded the bus, then everyone in the black row nearest the front had to get up and stand, so that a new row for white people could be created. Often when boarding the buses, black people were required to pay at the front, get off, and reenter the bus through a separate door at the back.] On some occasions bus drivers would drive away before black passengers were able to freeboard.] National City Lines owned the Montgomery Bus Line at the time of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. (Academy of Achievement).

The bus incident led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by the young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The association called for a boycott of the city-owned bus company. The boycott lasted 382 days and brought Mrs. Rosa Parks, Dr. King, and their cause to the attention of the world. A Supreme Court Decision struck down the Montgomery ordinance under which Mrs. Parks had been fined, and outlawed racial segregation on public transportation. (Academy of Achievement).

In 1957, Mrs. Parks and her husband, Michigan where Mrs. Parks served on the staff of U.S. Representative John Conyers. The Southern Christian Leadership Council established an annual Rosa Parks Freedom Award in her honor.

After the death of her husband in 1977, Mrs. Rosa Parks founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. The Institute sponsors an annual summer program for teenagers called Pathways to Freedom. The young people tour the country in buses, under adult supervision, learning the history of their country and of the civil rights movement. President Clinton presented Rosa Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. She received a Congressional Gold Medal in 1999 (Wright, 197).

When asked if she was happy living in retirement, Rosa Parks replied, "I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I don't think there is any such thing as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say you're happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I haven't reached that stage yet” (credoreference.com). 

After her death, her casket was placed in the rotunda of the United States Capitol for two days, so the nation could pay its respects to the woman whose courage had changed the lives of so many. She is the only woman and second African American in American history to lie in state at the Capitol, an honor usually reserved for Presidents of the United States.

Rosa became tired of waiting for the world to change on its own, so she revolted against unfair prejudice laws and has made African-Americans equal and inspired many to stand up for justice. When faced with a situation where wrong and hurtful things are being done, people should follow Rosa Parks’ remarkable example and not be afraid to say or do something to stop them from happening, no matter who they are. For Mrs. Parks has shown marvelously, anyone can be a hero.

Work Cited

    Abdul -Jabbar, Kareem. BLACKS PROFILES IN COURAGE. New York: William Morrow AND Company. 1991. Print. 

Brunner, Borgna. And, and Haney.  Elisa "Civil Rights Timeline Milestones in the Modern Civil Rights Movement." Infoplease. Web. 16 May 2012. http://www.infoplease.com/spot/civilrightstimeline1.html

Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956)." Martin Luther King JR. and the struggle for freedom. Martin Luther KING Research and Education institute JR., 2010. Web. 16 May 2012. <http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/>.

Parks, Rosa (Louise McCauley) (1913-2005). (2010). In the Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather guide. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/heliconhe/parks_rosa_louise_mccauley_1913_2005.

Rosa Parks Biography Pioneer of Civil Rights." Academy of Achievement. A Museum of Natural History Washington D,C, 1981. Web. 30 Apr. 2012.

"Rosa Parks & the Civil Rights Movement."http://www.rosaparksfacts.com/rosa-parks-civil-rights-movement.. N.P., 2010. Web. 16 May 2012. <http://www.rosaparksfacts.com/rosa-parks-civil-rights-movement.php>.

Wright, Roberta, Hughes. The Birth of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Southfield, MI: Charro, 1991. Print.