Rosa Louise Parks Essay -- Civil Rights Movement Biography History

Rosa Louise Parks   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The woman who earned the title â€Å"Mother of the Civil Rights Movement†, Rosa Louise Parks is an enormous inspiration to the African American race. Rosa was born in Tuskegee, Alabama on February 4, 1913 to James and Leona McCauley (The Life of Rosa Parks). Both of Rosa’s parents were born before slavery was banished from the United States. They suffered a difficult childhood, and after emancipation the conditions for blacks were not much better. Rosa’s mother was a schoolteacher and her father was a farmer (Rosa Parks: Pioneer of Civil Rights Interview). Rosa’s parents separated in 1915, and her mother moved Rosa and her younger brother to Montgomery, Alabama to live with their grandmother (Rosa Parks: The Woman Who Changed a Nation).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The southern states during this period of time were extremely segregated. Confederate Army veterans from Pulaski, Tennessee established the Ku Klux Klan, a secret society in 1866 during reconstruction. Members of the Klan beat and murdered several black people. During election times there would be several occurrences where Klan members would beat, rape, and murder blacks, trying to intimidate the republican representatives. In order to hide their identity, they would where white robes, and white sheets over their faces with only the eyes cut out. They would burn crosses to petrify their victims and their families (The New Encyclopedia of America 133). The Ku Klux Klan was very involved in Montgomery, where Rosa and her family were living.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Rosa’s mother was a very important role model for her and her brother. Because their mother was a schoolteacher, she home schooled Rosa until the age of eleven (Rosa Parks: The Woman Who Changed a Nation). After she was eleven, Rosa attended the all-black school of Montgomery Industrial School for Girls where she cleaned classrooms in order to pay her tuition. After attending the school for girls, she enrolled at Booker T. Washington High School, another black school, until the age of 15. She was forced to drop out of her High School because her mother was ill and she needed to return home to take care of her (The Life of Rosa Parks).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When Rosa McCauley was 20 years old in 1932 she met and married a barber by the name of Mr. Raymond Parks. Rosa began to sew and to take on several seamstress jobs, and also housekeeping jobs (Rosa Parks: The... ...ry Bus Boycott. Silver Burdett Press, 1991. Freedom Hero: Rosa Parks. AP News Wire. 12 August 2008 http://www.myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?=rosaParks The Life of Rosa Parks. Troy State University. 25 August 2008 http://www.tsum.edu/museum/parksbio.htm Lopes, Marilyn. The Rosa Parks Story: How One Person Made a Difference. 15 December 2003 http://www.nncc.org/Curriculum/rosa.parks.html NAACP http://www.naacp.org/home/index.htm Rosa Parks: The Woman Who Changed a Nation. Grandtimes. 20 Dec 2003 http://www.grandtimes.com/rosa.html Rosa Parks: Pioneer of Civil Rights interview, June 2, 1995, Williamsburg, Virginia. http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/par0int-1 Smith, Shanice. "American Poetry." The New Encyclopedia of America. 3rd ed. 2003. Spotlight on Mrs. Rosa Parks, Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. Girl Power. 15 December 2003 http://www.girlpower.gov/girlarea/gpguests/RosaParks.htm Stephen Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley. "Witness to America : an illustrated documentary history of the United States from the Revolution to today." Harper Resource 1999 "TIME 100: Heroes & Icons of the 20th Century" Time Warner Publishing, June 14, 1999