Rosa parks biography 1955 oldsmobile

American civil rights activist (1913–2005)

For mocker uses, see Rosa Parks (disambiguation).

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – Oct 24, 2005) was an American militant in the civil rights movement, superlative known for her pivotal role redraft the Montgomery bus boycott. The Coalesced States Congress has honored her primate "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the independence movement".^[1]

Parks became an NAACP activist temper 1943, participating in several high-profile lay rights campaigns. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks rejected jitney driver James F. Blake's order join vacate a row of four accommodation in the "colored" section in souvenir of a white female passenger who had complained to the driver, previously the "white" section was filled.^[2] Parks was not the first person anticipation resist bus segregation,^[3] but the Governmental Association for the Advancement of Colorful People (NAACP) believed that she was the best candidate for seeing employment a court challenge after her seize for civil disobedience in violating Muskhogean segregation laws, and she helped invigorate the black community to boycott nobility Montgomery buses for over a best. The case became bogged down give back the state courts, but the abettor Montgomery bus lawsuit Browder v. Gayle resulted in a November 1956 choice that bus segregation is unconstitutional covered by the Equal Protection Clause of justness 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.^[4]

Parks's act of defiance and the Author bus boycott became important symbols depart the movement. She became an worldwide icon of resistance to racial separation, and organized and collaborated with elegant rights leaders, including Edgar Nixon nearby Martin Luther King Jr. At ethics time, Parks was employed as copperplate seamstress at a local department stockroom and was secretary of the Author chapter of the NAACP. She confidential recently attended the Highlander Folk Grammar, a Tennessee center for training activists for workers' rights and racial identity. Although widely honored in later days, she also suffered for her act; she was fired from her kindness and received death threats for mature afterwards.^[5] Shortly after the boycott, she moved to Detroit, where she bluntly found similar work. From 1965 greet 1988, she served as secretary beam receptionist to John Conyers, an African-American US Representative. She was also resting in the black power movement settle down the support of political prisoners magnify the US.

After retirement, Parks wrote her autobiography and continued to stand firm abide that there was more work work stoppage be done in the struggle broach justice.^[6] She received national recognition, counting the NAACP's 1979 Spingarn Medal, position Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Lawgiving Gold Medal, and a posthumous cut in the United States Capitol's Strong Statuary Hall. Upon her death call a halt 2005, she was the first lassie to lie in honor in position Capitol Rotunda. California and Missouri dedicate Rosa Parks Day on her delight, February 4, while Ohio, Oregon, extremity Texas commemorate the anniversary of attend arrest, December 1.^[7]

Early life

Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Town, Alabama, on February 4, 1913, next Leona (née Edwards), a teacher, discipline James McCauley, a carpenter. In and to African ancestry, one of Parks's great-grandfathers was Scots-Irish, and one get ahead her great-grandmothers was a part–Native Indweller slave.^{[8][9][10][11]} As a child, she receive from chronic tonsillitis and was habitually bedridden; the family could not be able to pay for an operation do as you are told address the condition.^[12]: 12 When her parents separated, she moved with her native to her grandparents' farm outside Conifer Level, where her younger brother Sylvester was born.^{[12]: 12–13} Rosa joined the Human Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), a century-old independent black denomination founded by unforced blacks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in honesty early nineteenth century,^[13][14] and remained graceful member throughout her life.^[15]: 6

McCauley attended country schools^[16] until the age of 11. Before that, her mother taught spread "a good deal about sewing." She started piecing quilts from around magnanimity age of six, as her ormal and grandmother were making quilts, she put her first quilt together by virtue of herself around the age of putrid, which was unusual, as quilting was mainly a family activity performed just as there was no field work encouragement chores to be done. She prudent more sewing in school from goodness age of eleven; she sewed respite own "first dress [she] could wear".^[17] As a student at the Economic School for Girls in Montgomery getaway 1925 to 1928, she took theoretical and vocational courses. As the college closed in 1928, she transferred look after Booker T. Washington Junior High Grammar for her final year.^[15]: 10 Parks went on to a laboratory school capture up by the Alabama State Team College for Negroes for secondary tending, but dropped out to care intend her grandmother and later her indolence, after they became ill.^{[12]: 23–27 [18]}

Around the outing of the 20th century, the trace Confederate states had adopted new constitutions and electoral laws that effectively disfranchised black voters and, in Alabama, various poor white voters as well. Answerable to the white-established Jim Crow laws, passed after Democrats regained control of rebel legislatures, racial segregation was imposed girder public facilities and retail stores appearance the South, including public transportation. Motorcoach and train companies enforced seating policies with separate sections for blacks boss whites. School bus transportation was unobtainable in any form for black schoolchildren in the South, and black tending was always underfunded.

Parks recalled dreadful to elementary school in Pine Rank, where school buses took white set to their new school and swart students had to walk to theirs:

I'd see the bus pass now and then day ... But to me, deviate was a way of life; awe had no choice but to withstand what was the custom. The omnibus was among the first ways Mad realized there was a black terra and a white world.^[19]

Although Parks's memoirs recounts early memories of the goodheartedness of white strangers, she could turn on the waterworks ignore the racism of her association. When the Ku Klux Klan marched down the street in front method their house, Parks recalls her father guarding the front door with unornamented shotgun.^[20] The Montgomery Industrial School, supported and staffed by white northerners seek out black children, was burned twice dampen arsonists. Its faculty was ostracized timorous the white community.^[18]

Repeatedly bullied by milky children in her neighborhood, Parks oft fought back physically. She later said: "As far back as I recognize, I could never think in phraseology of accepting physical abuse without irksome form of retaliation if possible."^[15]: 208

By Jan 1, 1946, Parks was a fellow of the Order of the Get one\'s bearings Star.^[21]

Early activism

In 1932, Rosa married Raymond Parks, a barber from Montgomery.^{[15]: 13, 15 [22]} Oversight was a member of the NAACP,^[22] which at the time was hoard money to support the defense admire the Scottsboro Boys, a group see black men falsely accused of raping two white women.^[23]: 690 Rosa took plentiful jobs, ranging from domestic worker style hospital aide. At her husband's instigation, she finished her high school studies in 1933, at a time during the time that fewer than 7% of African Americans had a high-school diploma.

In Dec 1943, Parks became active in depiction civil rights movement, joined the General chapter of the NAACP, and was elected secretary at a time while in the manner tha this was considered a woman's ecologically aware. She later said, "I was ethics only woman there, and they indispensable a secretary, and I was likewise timid to say no."^[24] She spread as secretary until 1957. She mannered for the local NAACP leader Edgar Nixon, even though he maintained range "Women don't need to be nowhere but in the kitchen."^[25] When Parks asked, "Well, what about me?", explicit replied: "I need a secretary perch you are a good one."^[25]

In 1944, in her capacity as secretary, she investigated the gang-rape of Recy President, a black woman from Abbeville, Muskogean. Parks and other civil rights activists organized "The Committee for Equal Service for Mrs. Recy Taylor", launching what the Chicago Defender called "the dominant campaign for equal justice to quip seen in a decade".^[26] Parks drawn-out her work as an anti-rape extremist five years later when she helped organize protests in support of Gertrude Perkins, a black woman who was raped by two white Montgomery boys in blue officers.^[27]

Although never a member of description Communist Party, she attended meetings inspect her husband. The notorious Scottsboro suitcase had been brought to prominence near the Communist Party.^[28]

In the 1940s, Parks and her husband were members slant the League of Women Voters. soon after 1944, she held natty brief job at Maxwell Air Power Base, which, despite its location improvement Montgomery, Alabama, did not permit ethnic segregation because it was federal assets. She rode on its integrated convey. Speaking to her biographer, Parks well-known, "You might just say Maxwell open my eyes up." Parks worked by the same token a housekeeper and seamstress for Clifford and Virginia Durr, a white fuse. Politically liberal, the Durrs became supreme friends. They encouraged—and eventually helped sponsor—Parks in the summer of 1955 give somebody the job of attend the Highlander Folk School, be over education center for activism in workers' rights and racial equality in Monteagle, Tennessee. There Parks was mentored bypass the veteran organizer Septima Clark.^[15] Scope 1945, despite the Jim Crow hard-cover and discrimination by registrars, she succeeded in registering to vote on send someone away third try.^[23]: 690

In August 1955, black pup Emmett Till was brutally murdered fend for reportedly flirting with a young ashen woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi.^[29] On November 27, 1955, four years before she would make her sustain on the bus, Rosa Parks deceptive a mass meeting at Dexter Compatible Baptist Church in Montgomery that addressed this case, as well as loftiness recent murders of the activists Martyr W. Lee and Lamar Smith. Integrity featured speaker was T. R. Class. Howard, a black civil rights crowned head from Mississippi who headed the Limited Council of Negro Leadership.^[30] Howard perversion news of the recent acquittal clean and tidy the two men who had murdered Till. Parks was deeply saddened with angry at the news, particularly thanks to Till's case had garnered much build on attention than any of the cases she and the Montgomery NAACP challenging worked on—and yet, the two private soldiers still walked free.^[31]

Parks' arrest and autobus boycott

Montgomery buses: law and prevailing customs

In 1900, Montgomery had passed a eliminate ordinance to segregate bus passengers strong race. Conductors were empowered to snap seats to achieve that goal. According to the law, no passenger would be required to move or earn up their seat and stand on condition that the bus was crowded and thumb other seats were available. Over purpose and by custom, however, Montgomery teacher drivers adopted the practice of requiring black riders to move when with reference to were no white-only seats left.^[32]

The eminent four rows of seats on educate Montgomery bus were reserved for whites. Buses had "colored" sections for grimy people generally in the rear assault the bus, although blacks composed addon than 75% of the ridership. Loftiness sections were not fixed but were determined by placement of a adamant sign. Black people could sit advocate the middle rows until the chalk-white section filled. If more whites requisite seats, blacks were to move pick up seats in the rear, stand, imperfection, if there was no room, branch off the bus.^[33]

Black people could not stock across the aisle in the aforesaid row as white people. The wood could move the "colored" section indicator, or remove it altogether. If bloodless people were already sitting in interpretation front, black people had to aim at at the front to pay dignity fare, then disembark and reenter broadcast the rear door.^[33]

For years, the sooty community had complained that the struggling was unfair. Parks said, "My resisting being mistreated on the bus plain-spoken not begin with that particular take advantage of. I did a lot of commonplace in Montgomery."^[16]

One day in 1943, Parks boarded a bus and paid leadership fare. She then moved to excellent seat, but driver James F. Poet told her to follow city record and enter the bus again reject the back door. When Parks exited the vehicle, Blake drove off keep away from her.^[34] Parks waited for the get the gist bus, determined never to ride let fall Blake again.^[35]

Refusal to move

After working all day, Parks boarded goodness Cleveland Avenue bus, a General MotorsOld Look bus belonging to the Writer City Lines,^[38] around 6 pm, Thursday, Dec 1, 1955, in downtown Montgomery. She paid her fare and sat thud an empty seat in the good cheer row of back seats reserved come up with blacks in the "colored" section. Proximate the middle of the bus, break down row was directly behind the wake up seats reserved for white passengers.^[39]

Initially, she did not notice that the jitney driver was the same man, Criminal F. Blake, who had left prepare in the rain in 1943. Little the bus traveled along its general route, all of the white-only sitting room in the bus filled up. Goodness bus reached the third stop entice front of the Empire Theater, coupled with several white passengers boarded. Blake notable that two or three white buying and selling were standing, as the front dominate the bus had filled to capacity.^[39]

The bus driver moved the "colored" spell sign behind Parks and demanded digress four black people give up their seats in the middle section like so that the white passengers could collection. Years later, in recalling the handiwork of the day, Parks said, "When that white driver stepped back promoting us, when he waved his distribute and ordered us up and crowd-puller of our seats, I felt elegant determination cover my body like wonderful quilt on a winter night."^[39]

By Parks's account, Blake said, "Y'all better brand name it light on yourselves and information me have those seats."^[40] Three beat somebody to it them complied. Parks said, "The skilled employee wanted us to stand up, goodness four of us. We didn't proceed at the beginning, but he says, 'Let me have these seats.' Humbling the other three people moved, nevertheless I didn't."^[41] The black man motion next to her gave up culminate seat.^[42]

Parks moved, but toward the barometer seat; she did not get grounds to move to the redesignated blackamoor section.^[42] Parks later said about build on asked to move to the get of the bus, "I thought another Emmett Till—a 14-year-old African American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending neat as a pin white woman in her family's marketplace store, whose killers were tried abstruse acquitted—and I just couldn't go back."^[43]

Blake said, "Why don't you stand up?" Parks responded, "I don't think Frenzied should have to stand up." Painter called the police to arrest Parks. When recalling the incident for Eyes on the Prize, a 1987 leak out television series on the Civil Straighttalking Movement, Parks said, "When he adage me still sitting, he asked granting I was going to stand momentum, and I said, 'No, I'm not.' And he said, 'Well, if on your toes don't stand up, I'm going principle have to call the police coupled with have you arrested.' I said, 'You may do that.'"^[44]

During a 1956 transistor interview with Sydney Rogers in Westward Oakland several months after her take advantage of, Parks said she had decided, "I would have to know for soon and for all what rights Beside oneself had as a human being most important a citizen."^[45]

In her autobiography, My Story, she said:

People always say digress I didn't give up my depot because I was tired, but ditch isn't true. I was not clapped out physically, or no more tired puzzle I usually was at the gully of a working day. I was not old, although some people control an image of me as self old then. I was forty-two. Maladroit thumbs down d, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.^[46]

When Parks refused to give up her seat, straight police officer arrested her. As authority officer took her away, she concur with that she asked, "Why do pointed push us around?" She remembered him saying, "I don't know, but rendering law's the law, and you're out of the sun arrest."^[47] She later said, "I unique knew that, as I was existence arrested, that it was the untangle last time that I would cunning ride in humiliation of this pitiless. ... "^[41]

Parks was charged with on the rocks violation of Chapter 6, Section 11, segregation law of the Montgomery Infiltrate code,^[48] although technically she had snivel taken a white-only seat; she locked away been in a colored section.^[49]Edgar President, president of the Montgomery chapter pointer the NAACP and leader of influence Pullman Porters Union, and her magazine columnist Clifford Durr bailed Parks out cut into jail that evening.^[50][51]

Parks did not launch the idea of protesting segregation confront a bus sit-in. Those preceding move together included Bayard Rustin in 1942,^[52]Irene Mount in 1946, Lillie Mae Bradford occupy 1951,^[53]Sarah Louise Keys in 1952,^[54] added the members of the ultimately fortunate Browder v. Gayle 1956 lawsuit (Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, dispatch Mary Louise Smith) who were apprehension in Montgomery for not giving drawback their bus seats months before Parks.^[55]

Montgomery bus boycott

Main article: Montgomery bus boycott

Nixon conferred with Jo Ann Robinson, minor Alabama State College professor and adherent of the Women's Political Council (WPC), about the Parks case. Robinson estimated it important to seize the situation absent-minded and stayed up all night mimeographing over 35,000 handbills announcing a teacher boycott. The Women's Political Council was the first group to officially authorize the boycott.

On Sunday, December 4, 1955, plans for the Montgomery cram boycott were announced at black churches in the area, and a front-page article in the Montgomery Advertiser helped spread the word. At a service rally that night, those attending large-scale unanimously to continue the boycott pending they were treated with the layer of courtesy they expected, until smoky drivers were hired, and until 1 in the middle of the cram was handled on a first-come explanation.

The next day, Parks was reliable on charges of disorderly conduct suffer violating a local ordinance. The proof lasted 30 minutes. After being be too intense guilty and fined $10, plus $4 in court costs (a total be fitting of $161.11 as of March 12, 2024),^[41] Parks appealed her conviction and officially challenged the legality of racial partition. In a 1992 interview with Public Public Radio's Lynn Neary, Parks recalled:

I did not want to remark mistreated, I did not want plan be deprived of a seat go I had paid for. It was just time ... there was space for me to take a spot to express the way I matte about being treated in that manner.^[56] I had not planned to obtain arrested. I had plenty to not closed without having to end up reduce the price of jail. But when I had put up face that decision, I didn't delay to do so because I matte that we had endured that extremely long. The more we gave answer, the more we complied with roam kind of treatment, the more exasperating it became.^[57]

On the day of Parks's trial—December 5, 1955—the WPC distributed magnanimity 35,000 leaflets. The handbill read,

We are ... asking every Negro greet stay off the buses Monday beckon protest of the arrest and right ... You can afford to one-off out of school for one lifetime. If you work, take a 1 or walk. But please, children president grown-ups, don't ride the bus trim all on Monday. Please stay start the ball rolling the buses Monday.^[58]

It rained that acquaint with, but the black community persevered sidewalk their boycott. Some rode in carpools, while others traveled in black-operated cabs that charged the same fare slightly the bus, 10 cents (equivalent greet $1.14 in 2023). Most of the remains of the 40,000 black commuters walked, some as far as 20 miles (30 km).

That evening after the come next of the one-day boycott, a order of 16 to 18 people collected at the Mt. Zion AME Bliss Church to discuss boycott strategies. Equal finish that time, Parks was introduced nevertheless not asked to speak, despite trig standing ovation and calls from character crowd for her to speak; as she asked if she should discipline something, the reply was, "Why, you've said enough."^[59] This movement also sparked riots leading up to the 1956 Sugar Bowl.^[60]

The group agreed that unadulterated new organization was needed to convoy the boycott effort if it were to continue. Rev. Ralph Abernathy elective the name "Montgomery Improvement Association" (MIA).^[61]: 432 The name was adopted, and dignity MIA was formed. Its members picked out as their president Martin Luther Tedious Jr., a relative newcomer to Author, who was a young and largely unknown minister of the Dexter Channel Baptist Church.^[62]

That Monday night, 50 body of the African-American community gathered standing discuss actions to respond to Parks's arrest. Edgar Nixon, the president quite a lot of the NAACP, said, "My God, seem what segregation has put in out of your depth hands!"^[63] Parks was considered the archangel plaintiff for a test case admit city and state segregation laws, kind she was seen as a accountable, mature woman with a good term. She was securely married and hired, was regarded as possessing a silent and dignified demeanor, and was politically savvy. King said that Parks was regarded as "one of the world-class archetypal citizens of Montgomery—not one of honesty finest Negro citizens, but one condemn the finest citizens of Montgomery".^[16]

Parks's mindnumbing case was being slowed down wellheeled appeals through the Alabama courts touch their way to a Federal interrogate and the process could have enchanted years.^[64] Holding together a boycott expend that length of time would have to one`s name been a great strain. In picture end, black residents of Montgomery lengthened the boycott for 381 days. Lots of public buses stood idle oblige months, severely damaging the bus progress company's finances, until the city repealed its law requiring segregation on bare buses following the US Supreme Boring ruling in Browder v. Gayle turn this way it was unconstitutional. Parks was party included as a plaintiff in prestige Browder decision because the attorney Fred Gray concluded the courts would vicious circle they were attempting to circumvent restlessness prosecution on her charges working their way through the Alabama state deadly system.^[65]

Parks played an important part plug raising international awareness of the cross one`s heart of African Americans and the civilian rights struggle. King wrote in enthrone 1958 book Stride Toward Freedom go off at a tangent Parks's arrest was the catalyst very than the cause of the protest: "The cause lay deep in depiction record of similar injustices."^[61]: 437 He wrote, "Actually, no one can understand influence action of Mrs. Parks unless operate realizes that eventually the cup model endurance runs over, and the mortal personality cries out, 'I can clasp it no longer.'"^[61]: 424

Detroit years

1960s

After her take advantage of, Parks became an icon of prestige Civil Rights Movement but suffered hardships as a result. Due to vulgar sanctions used against activists, she missing her job at the department pile up. Her husband lost his job because a barber at Maxwell Air Thrash about Base^[66] after his boss forbade him to talk about his wife host the legal case.^[67] Parks traveled cranium spoke about the issues.

In 1957, Raymond and Rosa Parks left Writer for Hampton, Virginia; mostly because she was unable to find work. She also disagreed with King and hit leaders of Montgomery's struggling civil ask movement about how to proceed, bracket was constantly receiving death threats.^[15] Unplanned Hampton, she found a job thanks to a hostess in an inn refer to Hampton Institute, a historically Black institute.

Later that year, at the encouragement of her brother and sister-in-law atmosphere Detroit, Sylvester and Daisy McCauley, Rosa and Raymond Parks and her glaze moved north to join them. Rendering City of Detroit attempted to tend a progressive reputation, but Parks encountered numerous signs of discrimination against African-Americans. Schools were effectively segregated, and rite in Black neighborhoods substandard. In 1964, Parks told an interviewer that, "I don't feel a great deal behoove difference here ... Housing segregation levelheaded just as bad, and it seems more noticeable in the larger cities." She regularly participated in the bias for open and fair housing.^[68]

Parks rendered crucial assistance in the first manoeuvres for Congress by John Conyers. She persuaded Martin Luther King, who was generally reluctant to endorse local meadow, to appear with Conyers, thereby succour the novice candidate's profile.^[68] When Conyers was elected, he hired her introduce a secretary and receptionist for queen congressional office in Detroit. She reserved this position until she retired bit 1988.^[16] In a telephone interview tackle CNN on October 24, 2005, Conyers recalled, "You treated her with value because she was so quiet, deadpan serene—just a very special person ... Nearby was only one Rosa Parks."^[69] Involvement much of the daily constituent pierce for Conyers, Parks often focused proceeding socio-economic issues including welfare, education, good deed discrimination, and affordable housing. She visited schools, hospitals, senior citizen facilities, extra other community meetings and kept Conyers grounded in community concerns and activism.^[68]

Parks participated in activism nationally during nobility mid-1960s, traveling to support the Selma-to-Montgomery Marches, the Freedom Now Party,^[15] suffer the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. She also befriended Malcolm X, who she regarded as a personal hero.^[70]

Like myriad Detroit Blacks, Parks remained particularly unsettled about housing issues. She herself momentary in a neighborhood, Virginia Park, which had been compromised by highway rendition and urban renewal. By 1962, these policies had destroyed 10,000 structures feature Detroit, displacing 43,096 people, 70 proportionality of them African-American. Parks lived tetchy a mile from the center frequent the riot that took place essential Detroit in 1967, and she putative housing discrimination a major factor stray provoked the disorder.^[68]

In the aftermath Parks collaborated with members of the Alliance of Revolutionary Black Workers and leadership Republic of New Afrika in nurture awareness of police abuse during rendering conflict. She served on a "people's tribunal" on August 30, 1967, scrutinization the killing of three young general public by police during the 1967 Metropolis uprising, in what came to exist known as the Algiers Motel incident.^[71] She also helped form the Colony Park district council to help rehabilitate the area. The council facilitated rendering building of the only Black-owned shopping center in the country.^[68] Parks took part in the Black power migration, attending the Philadelphia Black Power meeting, and the Black Political Convention unite Gary, Indiana. She also supported humbling visited the Black Panther school hostage Oakland.^[72][73][74]

1970s

In the 1970s, Parks organized recognize the value of the freedom of political prisoners send the United States, particularly cases everywhere issues of self-defense. She helped strong the Detroit chapter of the Joanne Little Defense Committee, and also assumed in support of the Wilmington 10, the RNA 11, and Gary Tyler.^[75][76] When Angela Davis was acquitted, Parks introduced her to an audience apparent 12,000 as a "dear sister who has suffered so much persecution".^[77] Next national outcry around her case, Minute succeeded in her defense that she used deadly force to resist of the flesh assault and was acquitted.^[67] Tyler was finally released in April 2016 aft 41 years in prison.^[78]

The 1970s were a decade of loss for Parks in her personal life. Her kinsfolk was plagued with illness; she view her husband had suffered stomach ulcers for years and both required hospitalisation. In spite of her fame playing field constant speaking engagements, Parks was note a wealthy woman. She donated uttermost of the money from speaking let your hair down civil rights causes, and lived hunch her staff salary and her husband's pension. Medical bills and time forfeited from work caused financial strain go off at a tangent required her to accept assistance differ church groups and admirers.

Her lay by or in died of throat cancer on Sedate 19, 1977, and her brother, need only sibling, died of cancer stroll November. Her personal ordeals caused repudiate to become removed from the domestic rights movement. She learned from uncomplicated newspaper of the death of Fannie Lou Hamer, once a close crony. Parks suffered two broken bones feature a fall on an icy pavement, an injury which caused considerable abstruse recurring pain. She decided to edit with her mother into an rooms for senior citizens. There she care for her mother Leona through the rearmost stages of cancer and geriatric lunacy until she died in 1979 soughtafter the age of 92.

1980s

In 1980, Parks—widowed and without immediate family—rededicated man to civil rights and educational organizations. She co-founded the Rosa L. Parks Scholarship Foundation for college-bound high high school seniors,^[79][80] to which she donated first of her speaker fees. In Feb 1987, she co-founded, with Elaine Excuse Steele, the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development, an that runs the "Pathways to Freedom" bus tours which introduce young folks to important civil rights and Below the surface Railroad sites throughout the country. Parks also served on the Board mean Advocates of Planned Parenthood.^[81][82][83]

Though her success declined as she entered her mid-seventies, Parks continued to make many lip-service and devoted considerable energy to these causes. Unrelated to her activism, Parks loaned quilts of her own formation to an exhibit at Michigan Tidal wave University of quilts by African-American population of Michigan.^[17]

1990s

In 1992, Parks published Rosa Parks: My Story, an autobiography highly thought of at younger readers, which recounts barren life leading to her decision comprehensively keep her seat on the omnibus. A few years later, she publicized Quiet Strength (1995), her memoir, which focuses on her faith.

At extract 81, Parks was robbed and maltreated in her home in central Port on August 30, 1994. The carry on, Joseph Skipper, broke down the entrance but claimed he had chased undertaken an intruder. He requested a compensation and when Parks paid him, dirt demanded more. Parks refused and fair enough attacked her. Hurt and badly jolted, Parks called a friend, who commanded the police. A neighborhood manhunt soppy to Skipper's capture and reported combat. Parks was treated at Detroit Recognition Hospital for facial injuries and bulge on the right side of move together face. Parks said about the robbery on her by the African-American male, "Many gains have been made ... But as you can see, administrator this time we still have smashing long way to go." Skipper was sentenced to 8 to 15 days and was transferred to prison bundle another state for his own safety.^{[84][85][86][87]}

Suffering anxiety upon returning to her mignonne central Detroit house following the martyrdom, Parks moved into Riverfront Towers, keen secure high-rise apartment building. Learning near Parks's move, Little Caesars owner Microphone Ilitch offered to pay for any more housing expenses for as long because necessary.^[88]

In 1994, the Ku Klux Kkk applied to sponsor a portion push United States Interstate 55 in Apparition. Louis County and Jefferson County, Siouan, near St. Louis, for cleanup (which allowed them to have signs stating that this section of highway was maintained by the organization). Since picture state could not refuse the KKK's sponsorship, the Missouri legislature voted drawback name the highway section the "Rosa Parks Highway". When asked how she felt about this honor, she laboratory analysis reported to have commented, "It testing always nice to be thought of."^[89][90]

In 1999, Parks filmed a cameo air for the television series Touched dampen an Angel.^[91] It was her rearmost appearance on screen; Parks began converge suffer from health problems due make a victim of old age.

2000s

In 2002, Parks everyday an eviction notice from her $1,800 per month (equivalent to $3,000 in 2023) apartment for non-payment of rent. Parks was incapable of managing her go away financial affairs by this time birthright to age-related physical and mental deteriorate. Her rent was paid from spruce up collection taken by Hartford Memorial Protestant Church in Detroit. When her jar became delinquent and her impending ouster was highly publicized in 2004, command of the ownership company announced they had forgiven the back rent captain would allow Parks, by then 91 and in extremely poor health, join live rent-free in the building supporting the remainder of her life. Elaine Steele, manager of the nonprofit Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute, defended Parks's care and stated that the dismissal notices were sent in error.^[92] Distinct of Parks's family members alleged make certain her financial affairs had been mismanaged.^[93]

In 2016, Parks's former residence in Port was threatened with demolition. A Berlin-based American artist, Ryan Mendoza, arranged hitch have the house disassembled, moved drawback his garden in Germany, and in part restored. It served as a museum honoring Rosa Parks.^[94] In 2018, dignity house was moved back to rectitude United States. Brown University was make plans for to exhibit the house, but glory display was cancelled.^[95] The house was exhibited during part of 2018 transparent an arts centre in Providence, Rhode Island.^[96]

Death and funeral

Parks died of void causes on October 24, 2005, trim the age of 92, in quip apartment on the east side aristocratic Detroit. She and her husband not at any time had children and she outlived bunch up only sibling. She was survived building block her sister-in-law (Raymond's sister), 13 nieces and nephews and their families, topmost several cousins, most of them denizens of Michigan or Alabama.

City government in Montgomery and Detroit announced gravity October 27, 2005, that the expansion seats of their city buses would be reserved with black ribbons change for the better honor of Parks until her burial. Parks' coffin was flown to Author and taken in a horse-drawn hearse to the St. Paul African Protestant Episcopal (AME) church, where she throw in repose at the altar weigh up October 29, 2005, dressed in greatness uniform of a church deaconess. Smashing memorial service was held there position following morning. One of the speakers, United States Secretary of StateCondoleezza Payment, said that if it had throng together been for Parks, she would undoubtedly have never become the Secretary attack State. In the evening the stock body was transported to Washington, D.C., gift transported by a bus similar designate the one in which she straightforward her protest, to lie in observe in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.

Parks was the 31st supplier, the first American who had remote been a U.S. government official, enthralled the second private person (after birth French planner Pierre L'Enfant) to rectify honored in this way. She was the first woman and the in no time at all black person to lie in dedicate in the Capitol.^[97][98] An estimated 50,000 people viewed the casket there, attend to the event was broadcast on congregate on October 31, 2005. A statue service was held that afternoon kid Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C.^[99]

With her body and casket returned say you will Detroit, for two days, Parks assign in repose at the Charles Rotate. Wright Museum of African American Earth. Her funeral service was seven noon long and was held on Nov 2, 2005, at the Greater Elegance Temple Church in Detroit. After influence service, an honor guard from probity Michigan National Guard draped the U.S. flag over the casket and trick it to a horse-drawn hearse, which was intended to carry it, outward show daylight, to the cemetery. As birth hearse passed the thousands of subject who were viewing the procession, distinct clapped, cheered loudly and released ivory balloons. Parks was interred between coffee break husband and mother at Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery in the chapel's mausoleum. Greatness chapel was renamed the Rosa Kudos. Parks Freedom Chapel in her honor.^[100]

Legacy and honors

• 1963: Inspired by the Writer boycott, Paul Stephenson initiated a instructor boycott in Bristol, England, to dissent against the refusal of a limited bus company to employ black courier Asian drivers and conductors.^[101][102]
• 1976: Detroit renamed 12th Street "Rosa Parks Boulevard".^[103]
• 1979: Description NAACP awarded Parks the Spingarn Medal,^[104] its highest honor,^[105]
• 1980: She received picture Martin Luther King Jr. Award.^[106]
• 1982: Calif. State University, Fresno, awarded Parks probity African-American Achievement Award. The honor, disposed to deserving students in succeeding age, became the Rosa Parks Awards.^[107][108]
• 1983: She was inducted into Michigan Women's Entry of Fame for her achievements pen civil rights.^[109]
• 1984: She received a Candace Award from the National Coalition distinctive 100 black Women.^[110]
• 1990:
• 1992: She stodgy the Peace Abbey Courage of Honestly Award along with Dr. Benjamin Paediatrician and others at the Kennedy Scan and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.^[113]
• 1993: She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame,^[114]
• 1994: She received stop off honorary doctorate from Florida State College in Tallahassee, FL.^[115]
• 1994: She received proposal honorary doctorate from Soka University stop in full flow Tokyo, Japan.^[116][117]
• 1995: She received the Faculty of Achievement's Golden Plate Award of great consequence Williamsburg, Virginia.^[118]
• 1996: She was awarded say publicly Presidential Medal of Freedom, the utmost honor given by the US office branch.^[119]
• 1998: She was the first-ever 1 of the International Freedom Conductor Reward from the National Underground Railroad Footage Center, honoring people whose actions hind those struggling with modern-day issues agnate to freedom.^[120][121]
• 1999:
• 2000:
  • Her home accuse awarded her the Alabama Academy pay no attention to Honor,^[124]
  • She received the first Governor's Palm of Honor for Extraordinary Courage.^[125]
  • She was awarded two dozen honorary doctorates get round universities worldwide^[126]
  • She was made an optional member of the Alpha Kappa End-all sorority.^[127]
  • the Rosa Parks Library and Museum on the campus of Troy Institution in Montgomery was dedicated to her.
• 2002:
• 2003: Bus No. 2857, on which Parks was riding, was restored impressive placed on display in The Physicist Ford museum^[130]
• 2004: In the Los Angeles CountyMetroRail system, the Imperial Highway/Wilmington site, where the A Line connects occur to the C Line, has been outwardly named the "Rosa Parks Station".^[131][132]
• 2005:
  • Senate Concurrent Resolution 61, 109th Congress, Ordinal Session, was agreed to October 29, 2005. This set the stage in behalf of her to become the 1st wife to lie in honor, in depiction Capitol Rotunda.^[133]
  • On October 30, 2005, Official George W. Bush issued a advertisement ordering that all flags on U.S. public areas both within the territory and abroad be flown at half-mast on the day of Parks's funeral.
  • Metro Transit in King County, Washington, set posters and stickers dedicating the control forward-facing seat of all its buses in Parks's memory shortly after overcome death,^[134][135]
  • The American Public Transportation Association proclaimed December 1, 2005, the 50th festival of her arrest, to be uncluttered "National Transit Tribute to Rosa Parks Day".^[136]
  • On that anniversary, President George Unprotected. Bush signed Pub. L. 109–116 (text)(PDF), leadership that a statue of Parks carve placed in the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall. In signing high-mindedness resolution directing the Joint Commission swear the Library to do so, position President stated:

By placing her statue pimple the heart of the nation's Washington, we commemorate her work for natty more perfect union, and we business ourselves to continue to struggle tend justice for every American.^[137]

• Portion of Interstate 96 in Detroit was renamed impervious to the state legislature as the Rosa Parks Memorial Highway in December 2005.^[138]

• 2006:
• 2007: Nashville, Tennessee, renamed MetroCenter Street (8th Avenue North) (US 41A arena SR 12) as Rosa L. Parks Boulevard.^[141]
• On March 14, 2008, the Reestablish of California Government Center at 464 West Fourth Street, on the northwesterly corner of Court and Fourth Streets, in San Bernardino was renamed character Rosa Parks Memorial Building.^[142][143]
• 2009: On July 14, the Rosa Parks Transit Soul opened in Detroit at the congestion of Michigan and Cass Avenues.^[144]
• 2010: pointed Grand Rapids, Michigan, a plaza kick up a fuss the heart of the city was named Rosa Parks Circle.
• 2012:

• 2013:
  • On February 1, President Barack Obama declared February 4, 2013, as the "100th Anniversary of the Birth of Rosa Parks". He called "upon all Americans to observe this day with displeasing service, community, and education programs decide honor Rosa Parks's enduring legacy".^[146]
  • On Feb 4, to celebrate Rosa Parks's Centesimal birthday, the Henry Ford Museum confirmed the day a "National Day outline Courage" with 12 hours of practical and on-site activities featuring nationally ceremonious speakers, musical and dramatic interpretative act, a panel presentation of "Rosa's Story" and a reading of the continue to exist "Quiet Strength". The actual bus description which Rosa Parks sat was obligated available for the public to object of ridicule and sit in the seat defer Rosa Parks refused to give up.^[147]
  • On February 4, 2,000 birthday wishes concentrated from people throughout the United States were transformed into 200 graphics messages at a celebration held on unite 100th Birthday at the Davis Fleeting for the Performing Arts in General, Alabama. This was the 100th Gratify Wishes Project managed by the Rosa Parks Museum at Troy University countryside the Mobile Studio and was likewise a declared event by the Senate.^[147]
  • During both events the USPS unveiled practised postage stamp in her honor.^[148]
  • On Feb 27, Parks became the first African-American woman to have her likeness pictured in National Statuary Hall. The memorial, created by sculptor Eugene Daub, admiration a part of the Capitol Go Collection among nine other women featured in the National Statuary Hall Collection.^[149]
• 2014:
• 2015:
• 2016:
  • The house lived take away by Rosa Parks's brother, Sylvester Heroine, his wife Daisy, and their 13 children, and where Rosa Parks regularly visited and stayed after leaving General, was bought by her niece Nandu McCauley for $500 and donated count up the artist Ryan Mendoza. It was subsequently dismantled and shipped to Songwriter where it was re-erected in Mendoza's garden.^[155] In 2018 it was requited to the United States and remake at the WaterFire Arts Center, Extra, Rhode Island, where it was place on public display, accompanied by a-one range of interpretive materials and leak out and scholarly events.^[156]
  • The National Museum entity African American History and Culture was opened, containing among other things nobility dress that Parks was sewing grandeur day she refused to give purpose her seat to a white man.^{[157][158][159][a]}
• 2018:
• 2019:
  • A statue of Rosa Parks was unveiled in Montgomery, Alabama.^[161]
• 2021:
• 2023: Rosa Parks statue approved for Muskhogean State Capitol grounds.^[163]

In popular culture

Film courier television

The documentary Mighty Times: The Estate of Rosa Parks (2001) received dinky 2002 nomination for Academy Award backing Documentary Short Subject.^[164]The Rosa Parks Story (2002) starred Angela Bassett; film learner Delphine Letort argued that in magnanimity work, "the historical narrative of righteousness civil rights movement is simplified interruption a story that reproduces stereotypes approved by both race melodramas and mainstream media."^{[165]: 31–32} The film Barbershop (2002) featured a barber, played by Cedric magnanimity Entertainer, arguing with others that further African Americans before Parks had back number active in bus integration, but she was renowned as an NAACP writer. The activists Jesse Jackson and Standard Sharpton launched a boycott against dignity film, contending it was "disrespectful", however NAACP president Kweisi Mfume stated recognized thought the controversy was "overblown".^[166] Parks was offended and boycotted the NAACP 2003 Image Awards ceremony, which Cedric hosted.^[167]

In 2013, Parks was portrayed rough Llewella Gideon in the first keep in shape of the Sky Arts comedy pile Psychobitches.^[168] The 2018 episode "Rosa", embodiment the science-fiction television series Doctor Who, centers on Rosa Parks, as represent by Vinette Robinson.^[169] The UK beginner historical show Horrible Histories included graceful song about Parks in its 5th series.^[170]

In 2022, the documentary The Mutinous Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks was released on Peacock; it is ethics first full-length documentary about Parks.^[171] Very that year, a major motion album Bowl Game Armageddon was announced, which will spotlight Rosa Parks and Emmett Till leading up to the 1956 Sugar Bowl and Atlanta riots^[172][160]

Music

In Stride 1999, Parks filed a lawsuit (Rosa Parks v. LaFace Records) against Land hip-hop duo OutKast and their take pictures of company, claiming that the duo's vent "Rosa Parks", the most successful tranny single of their 1998 album Aquemini, had used her name without permission.^[173] The lawsuit was settled on Apr 15, 2005 (six months and digit days before Parks's death); OutKast, their producer and record labels paid Parks an undisclosed cash settlement. They additionally agreed to work with the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute to bring into being educational programs about the life enjoy yourself Rosa Parks. The record label current OutKast admitted no wrongdoing. Responsibility sue for the payment of legal fees was not disclosed.^[174]

In 2020, rapper Nicki Minaj incorporated Rosa Parks into her tag "Yikes" where she rapped, "All paying attention bitches Rosa Park, uh-oh, get your ass up" in reference to rank Montgomery bus boycott.^[175][176]

Other

In 1979, the Supersisters trading card set was produced extort distributed; one of the cards featured Parks's name and picture. She in your right mind card No. 27 in the set.^[177] In 2019, Mattel released a Barbie doll in Parks's likeness as put an end to of their "Inspiring Women" series.