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Top 10 Astonishing Facts about Black activist Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks is remembered for having refused to give her seat on a bus to a white person. What followed was a statewide bus boycott known as Montgomery Bus Boycott.

The protest started from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956. It was a civil rights movement that fought the racial segregation of the transit system.

This peaceful protest was led by Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. During the boycott, black passengers were attacked and short-changed by bus drivers in addition to being left stranded after paying their fares.

Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her mother was a teacher while her father was a carpenter. She grew up on a farm with her mother, brother and maternal grandparents.

Parks became a national symbol of dignity and strength in the struggle to end racial segregation. Here are the top 10 astonishing facts about Rosa Parks.

1. Rosa Park took whatever education she could

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Growing up, Rosa went to segregated schools. In Alabama, there were laws that segregated Blacks and Whites.

Black and white students went to separate schools and used separate public facilities.  

The black schools received less funding compared to white schools. Rosa went to The Montgomery Industrial School for Girls where she studied both academic and vocational courses.

Despite the limited educational resources, Rosa made the most out of what she got. She dropped out of high school to take care of her mother and grandmother after they fell ill.

Rosa went back to school and got her diploma in 1933, she was among the few blacks to get such distinctions at that time.

2. Rosa Park came from a family of civil rights activists

Rosa Parks grew up in Pine Level, Alabama. The Ku Klux Klan would march and her father stood outside with a shotgun, protecting them.

After she graduated from high school. Rosa got married and was part of a civil rights movement together with her husband.

She was a long-time member of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP).

As the secretary for NAACP, she travelled across the state and interviewed victims of discrimination and witnesses to lynching.

Rosa moved to Detroit and worked as an assistant U.S. Representative John Conyers, where she helped find housing for the homeless.

3. Rosa’s husband was a civil rights activist too

By Schlesinger Library – Wikimedia

In 1933, Rosa met and married Raymond Parks. He was a barber and member of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.

He encouraged her to finish high school and earn her diploma. This was a rare achievement for African American women at the time.

Rosa worked as a youth leader and a secretary to president E.D Nixon. She also worked as a seamstress at a department store.

The couple fought for equal rights for Blacks in the Southern State.

4. Rosa was not seated on a whites-only section of the bus

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The day that Rosa refused to give up her seat, she was seated in the African American section.

After the Whites only section got filled, Black passengers would be made to move to the back of the bus and give up their seat to the white passenger.

Three Black passengers left their seats to White passengers but Rosa Parks did not move. She was not tired from work or old but was tired of the treatment of Blacks by the whites.

5. She was the secretary of the NAACP

When she served as a secretary of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, Parks would travel a lot throughout Alabama.

She spoke to victims of discrimination and lynching. She reported these stories and shared the personal accounts with her team at the NAACP.

Rosa also held a brief job at Maxwell Air Force Base, which did not permit racial segregation because it was federal property. Parks worked as a housekeeper and seamstress for Clifford and Virginia Durr, a white couple.

6. Rosa cleared the air in her autobiography about the bus incident

By Associated Press – Wikimedia

In her autobiography, Rosa explained that her refusal to give up her seat on the bus was not because she was physically tired that day.

Rosa said she was not old; she was only 42. She said she was tired I was, was tired of giving in.

7. It was not the first time that the bus driver called the police on Rosa Parks

In 1943, a bus driver known as Blake asked Parks to get off the bus and enter using the back door.

She had just paid her bus fare and was moving to get her seat. Blake told her to follow city rules and enter the bus again from the back door.

When she exited the vehicle, Blake drove off without her. After that incident, Rosa made a point of looking at who was driving the bus before she got on.

After the Supreme Court outlawed bus segregation, Rosa rode one of the newly integrated buses that were driven by, Blake, the same driver that called the police on her.

8.  A 15-year-old girl was the first to refuse to give up her seat on the bus

Claudette Colvin, By Schlesinger Library – Wikimedia

While many came to know Rosa Parks from the Montgomery Bus Boycott, she was not the first to do that.

Those that did it before her were Bayard Rustin in 1942, Irene Morgan in 1946, Lillie Mae Bradford in 1951, Sarah Louise Keys in 1952.

Just nine months before Parks made history, a 15-year-old, Claudette Colvin was arrested in the same city for not moving from her bus seat for a white passenger.

9. Rosa Parks was forced to move after she was released

After she got bailed. Rosa continued to receive harassment and threats in the wake of the boycott. Both she and her husband lost their jobs after the court case.

Fearing for her safety, Rosa, her husband and mother, moved to Detroit, where her brother lived.

She worked as an administrative aide in the Detroit office of Congressman John Conyers Jr. in 1965. Rosa worked here until her retirement in 1988.

10. Rosa was the first woman to lie in state at the Capitol

By John Mathew Smith – Wikimedia

Rosa Parks died of natural causes in 2005 aged 92. She was laid in state at the U.S Capitol, an honour reserved for distinguished public officers.

Rosa was the first woman to lay in State. She was later buried at Detroit’s Woodlawn Cemetery between her husband and mother.