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Rosa Parks: A Civil Rights Activist

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Rosa Parks: A Civil Rights Activist
Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist in the nineteen fifties. Her protesting lead to one of the largest boycotts in history, lasting for three hundred eighty-five days. She won many awards for her protesting and leadership, even having a few become named after her. Before she refused to leave her bus seat, to the rest of the world, she was just another woman oppressed for her race. Afterwards, she became one of the most recognized civil rights activists our country has ever seen. She died a woman that many consider not only the mother of civil rights, but an American hero.

Rosa Parks had a very difficult childhood, full of hardship and racial terrorism. Fortunately she was not doomed to a life of fear. Not only did she escape those bonds, but she helped lead the way to freedom for many others. Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama.(Rosa L. Parks) She lived with her mother and her grandparents in Pine Level, Alabama.(Scandiffio) From the time she was six years old, Rosa and the rest of the town was terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan.(Scandiffio) Rosa's school closed when she was in eighth grade, and she became a seamstress …show more content…
Her husband Raymond quit after being forbade from talking about her.(Scandiffio) They ended up moving to Detroit, where she worked in congressman John Conyer's office.(Rosa L. Parks) The bus boycott lasted for 382 days, finally ended when the bus segregation laws were lifted (Rosa Parks) because of their unconstitutionality.(Rosa L. Parks) Rosa's case made it all the way to the supreme court, and on November 13, 1956 segregation was announced illegal. The Southern Christian Leadership Council named an award, the Rosa Parks Freedom Award, after her. She also won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Spingarn Medal, and quite a few others. While life directly after the arrest was tough for her, her awards and the differences she made in so many others lives more than made up for
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