Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913, as Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama to James and Leona McCauley. When she was eleven, she started school at the all black private school, Montgomery Industrial School for Girls. The school had a strong belief in self- worth and reinforced that in all of its students. Rosa’s mom had the same advice saying, “Take advantage of opportunities no matter how few they are.” Rosa Parks would go to bed scared every night hearing sounds of lynching and of the Klan riding around. When it was time to go to college, she attended Alabama State Teachers College.

On December 18, 1932 at the age of twenty, Rosa McCauley married Raymond Parks. Soon after marriage, she moved to Montgomery, Alabama, and together with her husband, they joined the NAACP, joining fight to help desegregate the South.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger in the first row of the black section. She was arrested and fined fourteen dollars. This started a 382-day bus boycott where many African- Americans and Caucasians did not ride the bus and found other means of transportation. The Supreme Court later outlawed racial segregation on public city buses.

In 1957, Rosa and her husband moved to Detroit so that Rosa could serve on the staff of U.S. Representative John Conyers. In Rosa Parks’ honor, the Southern Leadership Council established an annual Rosa Parks Freedom Award. She received many more awards throughout the course of her life. Raymond Parks died in 1977, after nearly forty-five years of marriage. Rosa Parks died in her sleep on October 24, 2005, at the age of ninety-two .When she died, she made history again when she became the first woman and the second African-American to ever ‘lie in state’ in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol Building.

"Each person must live their life as a model for others."

~Rosa Parks