Rosa Parks β helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in Her actions inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Led by a young Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional. Over the next half-century, Parks became a nationally recognized symbol of dignity and strength in the struggle to end entrenched racial segregation. Her brother, Sylvester, was born in , and shortly after that her parents separated. Did you know? Parks stepped onto his very crowded bus on a chilly day 12 years earlier, paid her fare at the front, then resisted the rule in place for Black people to disembark and re-enter through the back door.
She stood her ground until Blake pulled her coat sleeve, enraged, to demand her cooperation. Parks left the bus rather than give in. She left at 16, early in 11th grade, because she needed to care for her dying grandmother and, shortly thereafter, her chronically ill mother.
He supported Rosa in her efforts to earn her high-school diploma, which she ultimately did the following year. Although Raymond had previously discouraged her out of fear for her safety, in December , Rosa also joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and became chapter secretary. She worked closely with chapter president Edgar Daniel E.
Nixon was a railroad porter known in the city as an advocate for Black people who wanted to register to vote, and also as president of the local branch of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union.
