Rosa Parks Quotes

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement. She is best known for her refusal to move from her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, in defiance of Jim Crow laws, which sparked the Montgomery bus boycott. She is sometimes known as the "mother of the civil rights movement".
Parks joined the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1943, serving as the organization's secretary and successfully registering to vote after multiple attempts despite significant obstacles designed to disenfranchise Black citizens. As NAACP secretary, Rosa Parks investigated and organized campaigns around cases of racial and sexual violence, such as those of Recy Taylor and Jeremiah Reeves, laying the groundwork for future civil rights actions.
Prior to Parks's refusal to move, numerous Black Montgomerians had engaged in similar acts of resistance against segregated public transportation. However, after Parks's arrest in 1955, local activists decided to use her case as a test case against segregation, leading the Women's Political Council (WPC) to organize a one-day bus boycott on the day of her trial. The boycott was widespread, with many Black Montgomerians refusing to ride the buses that day. After Parks was found guilty of violating state law, the boycott was extended indefinitely, with the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) organizing a transportation network to sustain it. During this time, Parks and other boycott leaders faced harassment and legal challenges, culminating in the court case Browder v. Gayle, which ruled that segregation on Montgomery buses was unconstitutional, ending the 381-day boycott.
Parks faced financial hardship and health issues as a result of her participation in the boycott, leading her to relocate to Detroit, Michigan. She continued her civil rights activism, advocating for various causes and figures, including John Conyers, Joanne Little, Gary Tyler, Angela Davis, Joe Madison, and Nelson Mandela. She was a supporter of the Black power movement and an anti-apartheid activist, participating in protests and conferences as part of the Free South Africa Movement. In 1987, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development with Elaine Eason Steele. After Parks's death on October 24, 2005, she was honored with public viewings and memorial services in Montgomery; Washington, D.C, where she lay in state at the United States Capitol rotunda; and Detroit, where she was ultimately interred at Woodlawn Cemetery.
Parks received numerous awards and honors throughout her life and posthumously, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Congressional Gold Medal. She was also the first Black American to be honored with a statue in the National Statuary Hall. Parks is portrayed in many accounts as a quiet, dignified heroine whose singular act inspired change. However, some scholars argue that this depiction obscures her lifelong activism, radical political views, and the gendered context in which her actions were interpreted, often to serve specific political or historical narratives.