Rosa parks

I. Biography of Rosa Parks:

Civil-rights activist. Born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her refusal to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus spurred on a city-wide boycott and helped launch nation-wide efforts to end segregation of public facilities.

Rosa Parks' childhood brought her early experiences with racial discrimination and activism forracial equality. After her parents separated, Rosa's mother moved the family to Pine Level, Alabama to live with her parents, Rose and Sylvester Edwards, on their farm. Both her grandparents were former slaves and strong advocates for racial equality. In 1932, Rosa married a barber named Raymond Parks who was an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).With Raymond's support, Rosa Parks finished her high school degree in 1933. She soon became actively involved in civil rights issues my joining the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP in 1943, serving as the secretary to the president, E.D. Nixon until 1957.

The Montgomery, Alabama city code required that all public transportation be segregated and that bus drivers had the "powers of a policeofficer of the city while in actual charge of any bus for the purposes of carrying out the provisions" of the code. While operating a bus, drivers were required to provide separate but equal accommodations for white and black passengers by assigning seats. This was accomplished with a line roughly in the middle of the bus separating white passengers in the front of the bus and African-Americanpassengers in the back. When an African-American passenger boarded the bus, they had to get on at the front to pay their fare and then get off and re-board the bus at the back door. When the seats in the front of the bus filled up and more white passengers got on, the bus driver would move back the sign separating black and white passengers and, if necessary, ask black passengers give up their seat.

OnDecember 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus for home. She took a seat in the first of several rows designated for "colored" passengers. Though the city's bus ordinance did give drivers the authority to assign seats, it didn't specifically give them the authority to demand a passenger to give up a seat to anyone. However, Montgomery bus drivers had adopted the custom of requiringblack passengers to give up their seats to white passengers, when no other seats were available. If the black passenger protested, the bus driver had the authority to refuse service and could call the police to have them removed.

II. Timeline of events:
● ● ● ● ●
1943 Spring ofSummer of December 1, December 21,
1955 1955 1955 1955

* In 1943, Parks had her first run-in on the public bus and was removed for be a black woman.

* Spring of 1955, Claudette Colvin and an elderly woman refused to give up their seats in themiddle section of a bus to white people. The elderly woman got off the bus, but Claudette refused to leave.

* Summer of 1955: Another bus incident involving a woman occurred that summer. She was removed from the bus and didn’t protest.

* December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus for home. She refused to give up her seat to a white man, the bus driver calledpolice, and Parks was arrested.

* December 21, 1956: The signs on the bus seats designating white and colored sections were removed. The boycott was over.

III. Elements of the story:

* Setting: Montgomery, Alabama, 1950.

* Characters: Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, Louise Smith, Edgar Nixon, the bus driver, Martin Luther King, Jr. and activists.

* Plot:

1. In...