Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement

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Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement
Representative Conyers once boasted, ‘“Rosa was a true giant of the civil rights movement. . . Her bravery, fortitude and perseverance in the face of discrimination served as the very touchstone of the civil rights movement”’ (Boyd, 2005 p. 43). Rosa Parks grew up during a time when the color of a person’s skin defined who they were and how they were treated. Parks had no intention of becoming the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement,” she was just an ordinary, common, every-day seamstress (Boyd, 2005 p. 42). But Parks was an honorable woman who stood up and fought for civil rights for African Americans.
In 2006 Wade-Lewis wrote about her memories growing up around Rosa Parks during the segregation. She retells how her family always had to use the bathroom at their house before road trips, never knowing if a “colored” one would be found on the way. They had separate water fountains and the “colored” one was usually lower and did not contain cold water. Schooling was another issue, they had typewriters and books but they were worn and broken. Colored students were informed by their teachers that they would have to “work twice as hard for half the credit.”
Parks began attending a segregated elementary school in 1918 at age five and enrolled in a private school in 1924 known as “Miss White’s Industrial School for Girls,” which had a black student body and a white teaching staff (Chronology, 2012). The goal of this school was to “provide an education as well as a sense of pride to their students during a time of racial segregation.” The head of the school required that all be based upon religion and “antisegregation views,” even if their white community did not approve of it (Harm...

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...A. (2006 December). Brown v. board of education (1954). Pbs.org. March 12, 2014.
Moholtra, A. (2008 June 1). Rosa Parks biography. Rosa Parks Facts. March 7, 2014.,
100 Years of History (2009). NAACP.org. March 12, 2014
Rosa Parks death (2013). Rosaparksfaacts.com. March 29, 2014
Rosa Parks & the Montgomery bus boycott (2013). Rosaparksfacts.com. March 26, 2014.
Rosa Parks interview: Pioneer of civil rights. (2013 December 6). Academy of American Achievement. March 3, 2014.
Rosa Parks was arrested for civil disobedience. (2000 April 24). Americas Library. March 7, 2014.
Schleier, C. Civil rights worker Rosa Parks her courage helped end segregation. (2000 August 01). Investors.com. March 26, 2014
Vox, L. (2014). Executive order 9981. About.com. March 19, 2014.
Wade-Lewis, M. (2006). I remember Rosa Parks: The impact of segregation. The Black Scholar, 35(4), 2-12.

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