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Rosa Parks

Origin: Tuskegee, Alabama
(February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005)

Heroic Values: Achievement, Caring, Courage, Faith, Humility, Integrity, Tolerance, Vision, Wisdom

Background

Rosa Parks played a pivotal role in Black Civil Rights progression, when on December 1st 1955, she defied her bus driver in giving up her seat for a white man (this was a lawful action and she was arrested). Not only did this single act show courage and strength in the face of adversity, but it also paved the way for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, led by Martin Luther King Jr. The boycott by the black population in Montgomery, Alabama, was the first true sign of black economic and, indirectly, political power.

Prior to this Parks had undertaken a broad range of jobs throughout her working career, including domestic worker and hospital aide. She finally served as the volunteer secretary to Edgar Nixon, President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter in Montgomery.

She received her High School diploma in 1933, becoming part of the 7% of African Americans that held this qualification, primarily due to the poor schools they were forced to attend due to the Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling 1898, which allowed for segregated schools, so long that they were ‘equal.’ Parks on her arrest 1955 said, “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.”

Parks worked tirelessly throughout her life to help others and has been awarded a number of accolades, but most notably the NAACP Spingarn Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Submitted by: Kit Bennett

Sources

Wikipedia
The online encyclopedia

Institue for Self Development
Parks' biography

The Time 100
A collection of Tintin sites