Rosa Parks
Parks in 1955, with Martin Luther King Jr. in the background
Born	Rosa Louise McCauley (1913-02-04)February 4, 1913 Tuskegee, Alabama, U.S.
Died	October 24, 2005(2005-10-24) (aged 92) Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Resting place	Woodlawn Cemetery, Detroit
Occupation	Civil rights activist
Known for	Montgomery bus boycott
Movement	Civil Rights Movement
Spouse(s)	Raymond Parks (m. 1932; died 1977)
Signature

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Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913. Her mother, Leona (née Edwards), was a teacher from Pine Level, Alabama. Her father, James McCauley, was a carpenter and mason from Abbeville, Alabama. Her name was a portmanteau of her maternal and paternal grandmothers' names: Rose and Louisa. In addition to her African ancestry, one of her great-grandfathers was of Scotch-Irish descent, and one of her great-grandmothers was of partial Native American ancestry.^[1] Her maternal grandfather, Sylvester Edwards, was born as a result of the rape of an enslaved woman by a plantation owner's son.^[2]

As an infant, Parks moved with her mother to her grandparents' farm outside Pine Level, where her younger brother Sylvester was born.^[3] To supplement the family's income, she worked on the plantation of Moses Hudson, who paid Black children 50 cents a day to pick cotton.^[4] Parks also learned quilting and sewing from her mother, completing her first quilt at age ten and her first dress at eleven.^[5] She attended the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, a century-old independent Black denomination founded by free Blacks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the early nineteenth century. Baptized at age two, she remained a member of the church throughout her life.^[6]

Alabama and other southern states began implementing segregationist policies during the 1870s and 1880s, culminating in a 1901 constitutional convention that formally codified Jim Crow segregation into law. This system enforced racial separation in nearly all aspects of life, including financial institutions, healthcare, religious facilities, burial grounds, and public transportation.^[7] Acts of racist violence were also widespread, with the Ku Klux Klan intensifying its activity in Pine Level after the end of World War I.^[8] Parks later recalled that she "heard of a lot of black people being found dead" under mysterious circumstances during her childhood.^[9]

Parks initially attended school in a one-room schoolhouse at the local Mount Zion AME church.^[10] Because she suffered from chronic tonsilitis, she often missed school during the academic year, causing her mother to enroll her in summer school.^[11] When she was nine, she received a tonsillectomy from a doctor in Montgomery, Alabama, which improved her health.^[12] When she was eleven or twelve, she began attending the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, where she received vocational training.^[13] After the school closed in 1928, she transferred to Booker T. Washington Junior High School. She then attended a laboratory school set up by the Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes, but dropped out to care for her ailing grandmother and mother.^[14]

After dropping out of school, Parks worked on her family's farm and as a domestic worker in white households.^[15] Black women in Alabama who worked as domestic workers often experienced sexual violence, as exemplified by the rape of Murdus Dixon, a 12-year-old girl who was threatened at knifepoint and raped in Birmingham, Alabama.^[16] During the 1950s or 60s, Parks wrote an account of an incident where a white man named "Mr. Charlie" attempted to sexually assault her. In her account, she verbally resists Mr. Charlie's advances and denounces his racism. The account concludes with her attempting to read a newspaper while ignoring him. While the account may have been partially or entirely fictionalized, biographer Jeanne Theoharis notes that many of the elements of the account "correspond to Parks's life", speculating that Parks "wrote [the account] as an allegory to suggest larger themes of domination and resistance", or that, "given that more than twenty-five years had passed before she wrote [the account] down, she augmented what she said to Charlie that evening with all the points that she had wished to make as she resisted his advances".^[17]

In 1931, Rosa was introduced to her future husband, Raymond Parks, by a mutual friend.^[18] She was initially "[not] very interested in him" because of "some unhappy romantic experiences"^[a] and because of his light skin.^[20] However, Raymond eventually persuaded Rosa to ride with him in his car. At the time, automobile ownership was rare among Black men in Alabama.^[21] Rosa described Raymond as the "first real activist" she had met, admiring his opposition to racial prejudice. The two married on December 18, 1932, at Rosa's mother's house.^[22]

Following their marriage, Raymond and Rosa became involved in the Scottsboro Boys case, concerning a group of nine Black boys who were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train in Paint Rock, Alabama. The Scottsboro Boys faced trial in Scottsboro, Alabama, where they were sentenced to death by electrocution. To raise support for their defense, Rosa and Raymond hosted fundraising meetings and gatherings for Scottsboro legal defenders at their Montgomery residence.^[23] According to historian Robin Kelley, the couple also attended meetings of the Communist Party USA, who helped bring attention to the Scottsboro Boys case.^[24] The Supreme Court of the United States ultimately overturned the Scottsboro Boys' convictions in Powell v. Alabama, citing insufficient legal representation. They were released in 1950.^[25]

In 1933, Rosa completed her high school education with encouragement from Raymond. At the time in Alabama, only 7% of Black people held a high school diploma. Subsequently, she worked as a nurse's aide at St. Margaret's Hospital, sewing to supplement her income. In 1941, she began working at Maxwell Air Force Base, a training facility for air force cadets.^[26][27] The base was fully integrated, and Parks was able to take public transit alongside her white coworkers on-base. However, when she returned home, she was required to use segregated buses, which frustrated her. According to Parks, her time at Maxwell "opened her eyes up", providing an "alternative reality to the ugly racial policies of Jim Crow".^[28]

Parks began attending meetings of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1943 after seeing a picture of a former classmate of hers, Johnnie Carr, at a meeting.^[29] In December 1943, was elected secretary of the chapter. Parks later explained that she accepted the role, considered a woman's position at the time, because "[she] was the only woman there, and they needed a secretary, and [she] was too timid to say no". She and Raymond were were also members of the Voter's League, a local organization focused on increasing Black voter registration.^[30] There were numerous obstacles preventing Black people from registering to vote in Alabama during this period, including poll taxes, literacy tests, intrusive questions on voter registration applications, and retaliation by employers. As of 1940, less than 0.1% of Black Montgomerians were registered to vote.^[31] Encouraged by NAACP activist E. D. Nixon, Parks attempted to register three times beginning in 1943, finally succeeding in 1945.^[32]

In her capacity as secretary, Parks began investigating the gang rape of Recy Taylor, a Black woman from Abbeville, in 1944.^[33] After a grand jury failed to indict the perpetrators, Parks and other civil rights activists organized "The Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor", launching "the strongest campaign for equal justice to be seen in a decade", according to The Chicago Defender.^[34] The campaign, which received nationwide attention, put pressure on Governor Chauncey Sparks to take steps to prosecute Taylor's assailants. Sparks ultimately promised to investigate the case.^[35] However, the state failed to secure indictments for the assailants after a second grand jury hearing in 1945.^[36] Despite this, historian Danielle L. McGuire describes the movement for justice in the Recy Taylor case as "the largest and best organized of many efforts to draw attention to the ruthless heart of the racial caste system", claiming that it "brought the building blocks of the Montgomery bus boycott together a decade earlier and kept them in place until it became Rosa Parks's turn to testify".^[37] Parks also organized support for Jeremiah Reeves, who was accused of raping a white woman in 1952. Reeves was ultimately executed in 1957.^[38]

Beginning in 1954, Parks began working as a seamstress for Clifford and Virginia Durr, a white couple. Politically liberal and opposed to segregation, the Durrs became her friends.^[39] They encouraged, and eventually helped sponsor, Parks to attend the Highlanender Folk School, an activist training center in Monteagle, Tennessee, in the summer of 1955. There, Parks was mentored by the veteran organizer Septima Clark. Parks later reflected that her experience at Highlander provided her with a vision of a unified, integrated society, marking the first time in her adult life that she witnessed "people of all races and backgrounds" interacting harmoniously.^[40] Later, in August 1955, she attended a Montgomery meeting concerning the lynching of Emmett Till.^[41] According to Theoharis, Parks was "heartened by the attention that people managed to get to the [Till] case", since the custom was to "keep things covered up".^[42]

Montgomery passed a city ordinance segregating bus passengers by race in 1900, before statewide segregation was implemented.^[43] Montgomery's Black residents conducted boycotts against segregated streetcars between 1900 and 1902, coinciding with similar boycotts and protests in other southern cities.^[44] The boycotts resulted in an amendment to the city ordinance, which stipulated that "no rider had to surrender a seat unless another was available". However, many drivers failed to follow the ordinance. Altercations between bus drivers and Black passengers were frequent.^[45] According to historian Cheryl Phibbs, "bus drivers were given policeman-like authority to determine where racial divisions were enforced".^[46] They were also generally armed.^[47]

Black people constituted a majority of bus riders in Montgomery.^[48] According to the Women's Political Council (WPC), a Montgomery-based advocacy group, "three-fourths of the riders" on Montgomery buses were Black.^[49][50] Despite this, the first ten rows on each Montgomery bus were reserved for white passengers, while the last ten rows were designated for Black passengers. Segregation in the middle rows was enforced at the driver's discretion.^[51] While city ordinances did not require patrons to give up their seats, bus drivers frequently demanded Black passengers relinquish their seats to accommodate white riders.^[52] Furthermore, Black passengers were sometimes required to pay their fares at the front of the bus, then exit and re-board through the back door.^[53]

In 1943, bus driver James F. Blake confronted Parks when she tried to take her seat from the front of the bus, insisting that she re-board in the back. Parks refused, telling Blake that she was "already on the bus and didn't see the need of getting off and getting back on when people were standing in the stepwell".^[54] After Blake grasped her sleeve, Parks moved to the front of the bus, sitting in the one of the rows reserved for white passengers, where she dropped her purse. Blake told her to "get off [his] bus", appearing poised to assault her. Parks admonished Blake, saying that he "better not hit [her]".^[55] She then exited the bus without re-boarding. Following this encounter, she typically avoided riding on Blake's bus.^[48]

Rosa Parks's arrest

Police report on Parks, December 1, 1955, page 1

Police report on Parks, December 1, 1955, page 2

Fingerprint card of Parks from her arrest on December 1, 1955

Parks being fingerprinted on February 22, 1956 after being arrested again alongside 73 others following a grand jury's indictment of 113 African Americans for orchestrating the Montgomery bus boycott^[56][57]

Before December 1955, several people were arrested for declining to give up their seats on Montgomery buses. Maxwell Air Force Base employee Viola White was arrested in 1944 and Mary Wingfield was arrested in 1949.^[58] Teenager Mary Louise Smith was arrested in October 1954.^[59] In March 1955, Claudette Colvin, a fifteen-year-old student at Booker T. Washington Magnet High School, was also arrested.^[60] Additional arrests included Aurelia Browder on April 29, 1955, and Susie McDonald on October 21, 1955.^[61] Smith, Colvin, Browder, and McDonald were the plaintiffs in the 1956 lawsuit Browder v. Gayle.^[62] Black activists, including members of the WPC and NAACP, considered Smith and Colvin as test cases for a community bus boycott, but ultimately determined that they were not suitable candidates.^[63]

At 5:00 p.m. on December 1, 1955, Parks left work and purchased several items from Lee’s Cut-Rate Drug before walking to Court Square to wait for her bus.^[64] She boarded the bus at around 5:30. Lost in thought, she did not notice that the James F. Blake was the driver. Parks later stated that if she had noticed Blake, she would not have boarded. ^[48] She paid her fare and went to sit in the middle section of the bus, next to a Black man and across from two Black women. Her chronic bursitis was causing her significant discomfort, particularly in her shoulders.^[65]

As the bus traveled along its regular route, all of the white-only seats in the bus filled up. The bus reached the third stop in front of the Empire Theater, and several white passengers boarded. One white man was forced to stand.^[66] Blake then demanded that Black passengers in the middle row yield their seats. While those seated near Parks complied, Parks remained seated.^[67] According to Parks:

I felt that, if I did stand up, it meant that I approved of the way I was being treated, and I did not approve.^[47]

When Blake inquired if she intended to stand, Parks refused. Blake threatened her with arrest, to which Parks responded, "you may do that." She considered physically resisting, but decided against it, as she "didn’t have any way of fighting back". Blake then called his supervisor, who advised him to call the police. Two officers arrived on the scene, and, at the insistence of Blake, arrested Parks for violating the Montgomery municipal code.^[68]

According to biographer Douglas G. Brinkley, Parks's refusal to move was not premeditated.^[69] Parks's former classmate, Mary Fair Burks, also clarified that Parks was not acting on behalf of the NAACP, as she "would have done so openly and demanded a group action on the part of the organization".^[70] Parks said of her refusal to move:

People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.^[71]

After her arrest, Parks was taken to Montgomery city hall, where she filled out her arrest forms. She was then taken to the city jail, where she was fingerprinted and had photographed. After repeated requests, she was granted permission to call home, notifying her mother of her arrest and asking for Raymond to come. E. D. Nixon was also informed of Parks's arrest by his wife, who had heard about the arrest from a friend, who had learned about it from a bus passenger. Nixon drove down to the jail with Clifford and Virginia Durr and paid Parks's bail.^[72]

After Parks's arrest, Nixon conferred with Clifford about the possibility of adopting Parks's arrest as a test case. The two favored Parks because of her high standing in the Black community, her respectable manners, and her "firm quiet spirit", which, according to Durr, "would be needed for the long battle ahead". After being approached by Nixon to be a test case, Parks consulted with her family. Despite concerns about potential violent retaliation, she ultimately consented. Attorney Fred Gray agreed to represent Parks in court, and WPC President Jo Ann Robinson was notified of the case.^[73] The WPC began planning for a one-day boycott of Montgomery buses on December 5, 1955, the day of Parks's trial. Under the guise of grading exams, Robinson collaborated with two students at Alabama State College to produce 35,000 leaflets announcing the boycott using a mimeograph provided by the college's business chair, John Cannon.^[74]

WPC members distributed the leaflets throughout the Black community, and Nixon enlisted the support of local Black clergy, including the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Martin Luther King Jr.^[75] A planning meeting including members of the Black clergy was held at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on December 2. While about half of the clergy in attendance left the meeting partway through, not wanting to be associated with politics, half stayed, and plans were drafted for alternative transportation during the boycott, including carpooling networks and collaboration with local taxi drivers. More leaflets were created at the meeting, and in the following days, were distributed by King and pastor Ralph Abernathy at bars and clubs. In addition, many Black pastors announced the boycott in their churches on Sunday December 4.^[76] Extensive media coverage in the Montgomery Advertiser and on local television and radio stations further publicized the boycott.^[77]

Despite attempts by Montgomery police officers to organize escorts for Black passengers, who they thought might fear retaliation from the Black community, bus ridership was low on the day of Parks's trial.^[77] Many Black residents walked or carpooled. ^[78] The trial took place in the courtroom at Montgomery city hall, with almost 500 Black Montgomerians attending.^[79] Parks pleaded "not guilty," and while she did not testify, two witnesses^[b] corroborated that open seats were available when she refused to move.^[82] The prosecution moved to charge Parks on state charges rather than municipal charges. The presiding judge permitted the change, and Parks was found guilty of violating state law. She was fined $10, plus $4 in court fees (equivalent to $164 in 2024).^[80] The trial took between five and 30 minutes.^[c][83] Gray immediately filed to appeal the ruling, while Nixon addressed the crowd assembled outside, urging them to remain nonviolent and vacate city hall.^[84]

While Parks handled telephone communications at Gray's office, boycott organizers gathered at Mount Zion AME Zion Church that afternoon to discuss prolonging the boycott and plan a mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church scheduled for that evening.^[85] They formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to oversee the boycott, electing King as leader.^[86][87] 15,000 people attended the evening meeting. Nixon and King both gave speeches, while Abernathy read the demands of the organizers to the crowd, asking them to stand if they supported a continued boycott:

1. Courteous treatment on the buses;
2. First-come, first-served seating with whites in front and blacks in back;
3. Hiring of black drivers for the black bus routes.^[88]

The crowd The crowd overwhelmingly supported continuing the boycott.^[89] Parks, hailed by King as a "heroine", asked if she should address the crowd, who repeatedly encouraged her to speak. However, she was told by "someone" that she had "said enough" and did not speak that evening.^[90] The decision to not have Parks speak has been interpreted by some as reflecting gender inequality within the civil rights movement. According to Theoharis:

As with the treatment of other women in the movement, Parks was lauded by the crowd as their heroine but not consulted for her vision of the struggle and subsequent political strategy. If she had gotten to speak, Parks might have connected the injustice on the bus to the travesties of Scottsboro, the brutal rapes of Recy Taylor and Gertrude Perkins, the murder of Emmett Till, and the impending legal lynching of Jeremiah Reeves... She might have talked about the loneliness of her stand on Thursday and the power of walking together on Monday. She might have thanked them for turning her individual refusal into a collective protest. She might have said that this movement was a long time in coalescing, but what a joyful and holy day it was now that it had come.^[90]

At a December 6 press conference, King declared that the boycott would continue until all demands had been satisfied.^[91] However, at a meeting on December 8, city and bus company officials dismissed MIA's demands. The MIA began developing a parallel transportation network for Black Montgomerians to support the boycott.^[92] Parks served temporarily as a dispatcher, coordinating transportation within the MIA's ride-sharing system.^[93] She was ostracized by her coworkers at Montgomery Fair, where she worked as a seamstress. In January 1956, she was terminated. A week later, Raymond was also terminated from his job at Maxwell Air Force Base. That same month, Montgomery Police Commissioner Clyde Sellers initiated a "Get Tough" policy, harassing Black pedestrians and boycott participants. Boycott organizers, including Parks, received regular death threats.^[94] In February, a state grand jury declared the boycott illegal, leading to the arrest of 115 boycott leaders, including Parks. However, ultimately only King was tried. The boycott continued.^[95]

Responding to a plan by city officials to stall Parks's case in state circuit courts, Gray filed suit in federal court. While Parks was initially included as a plaintiff in this case, she was eventually removed to avoid federal dismissal on the grounds that her case was already being heard in Alabama's state court.^[96] In the end, the case was brought before the Supreme Court as Browder v. Gayle, which ruled the statute mandating dsegregation of Montgomery buses unconstitutional. Later, before a district court, the Supreme Court's ruling was upheld. After rejecting appeals by the city of Montgomery and state of Alabama, the Supreme Court order the integration of Montgomey's buses on December 20, 1956. King called off the boycott that day, after 381 days of it being in effect.^[62]

After being fired from their jobs, Rosa and Raymond faced significant financial hardship, particularly after their landlord implemented a monthly rent increase of ten dollars.^[97] In February 1956, King issued a memorandum requesting that Parks receive $250-$300 from the MIA relief fund, which was granted.^[98] Parks developed severe health problems, including chronic insomnia, stomach ulcers, and a heart condition.^[99] She traveled throughout the year, including to Detroit, Michigan in March. While there, she visited her brother and addressed United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 600, in a departure from the mainstream NAACP, who opposed trade union affiliations.^[100]

In 1957, after the end of the boycott, Virginia Durr offered here a position at Highlander in hopes of organizing a Black voter registration campaign in Montgomery, but she refused, citing Highlander's distant Tennesee location and her fear or reprisal if asked to speak in Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisianna. She also disagreed with King and the emerging Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) about their impending campaign for airport desegregation campaign. Tensions between King and Nixon caused a rift in the MIA, with Parks taking Nixon's side.^[101] However, tensions developed between Nixon and Parks as well, and her health further deteriorated.^[102] In August 1957, prompted by economic insecurity, threats to her safety, and divions within the MIA leadership, she left Montgomery for Detroit, where her brother, Sylvester, and her cousins, Thomas Williamson and Annie Cruse, lived.^[103] The MIA, embarassed by her decision to move, raised $500 for her as a "going-away present".^[104]

Rosa, Raymond, and Rosa's mother initially lived with Williamson after moving to Detroit before renting an apartment on Euclid Avenue. For a brief period beginning in October 1957, Parks moved to Hampton, Virginia to work at a Holly Tree Inn as a hostess. She returned to Detroit in December.^[105] She and her family continued to struggle financially.^[106] They lost their apartment in 1959 and moved into a meeting hall for the Progressive Civic League (PCL), a local Black professional organization. Rosa managed the treasurty at the PCL's credit union while Raymond served as the meeting hall's caretaker.^[107]

In early 1960, Parks's health deteriorated even further, as she underwent multiple surgeries: one to remove an ulcer and another to remove a throat tumor. Unable to pay the medical bills, the family entered into debt. She received donations from the MIA and PCL, and the Black press began to write about her financial difficulties.^[108] In 1961, after her health improved and she found employment working for 10 hours a day at the Stockton Sewing Company, she and her family moved to the Virginia Park neighborhood of Detroit. Raymond also found employment at Wildermere Barber Shop during this time.^[109]

Rosa continued to support the civil rights movement throughout the 1960s. In August 1963, she traveled to Washington, D.C. to take part in the March on Washington. Over 250,000 people participated in the march, and Parks was honored alongside other prominent women in the civil rights struggle during the event's "Tribute to Women" segment. The march has been criticized for its lack of women's representation, with no women being included in the delegation that was sent to meet with the Kennedy administration. Parks said of the event that it was "a great occasion, but women were not allowed to play much of a role".^[110]