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Rosa Parks: My Story
Product DescriptionRosa Parks is best known for the day she refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus, sparking the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott. Yet there is much more to her story than this one act of defiance. In this straightforward, compelling autobiography, Rosa Parks talks candidly about the civil rights movement and her active role in it. Her dedication is inspiring; her story is unforgettable."The simplicity and candor of this courageous woman's voice makes these compelling events even more moving and dramatic."--Publishers Weekly, starred review
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Published January 17, 2023
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June 14, 2024
A MARVELOUS BOOK OUTLINING HER FAMOUS PROTEST, BUT ALSO MUCH MORE
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (1913-2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery [Alabama] bus boycott; she was the secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP at the time her protest took place.
She wrote in the first chapter of this 1992 book, “For half of my life there were laws and customs in the South that kept African Americans segregated from Caucasians and allowed white people to treat black people without any respect. I never thought this was fair, and from the time I was a child, I tried to protest against disrespectful treatment. But it was very hard to do anything about segregation and racism when white people had the power of the law behind them. Somehow we had to change the laws. And we had to get enough white people on our side to be able to succeed. I had no idea when I refused to give up my seat on that Montgomery bus that my small action would help put an end to the segregation laws in the South. I only knew that I was tired of being pushed around. I was a regular person, as good as anybody else. There had been a few times in my life when I had been treated by white people like a regular person. So I knew what that felt like. It was time that other white people started treating me that way.” (Pg. 2)
She recalls, “Not all the white people in Pine Level were hostile to us black people, and I did not growing up feeling that all white people were hateful. When I was very young, I remember, there was an old, old white lady who used to take me fishing. She was real nice and treated us just like anybody else. She used to visit my grandparents a lot, and talk with them for a long time. So there were some good white people in Pine Level.” (Pg. 36-37)
When she was eleven, “My mother… sent me to school in Montgomery… most everyone called it Miss White’s school because Miss Alice L. White was the principal and co-founder… Miss White was from Melrose, Massachusetts. All her faculty were white women from the North. That meant that when they came south to educate black girls, they were ostracized by the white community in Montgomery. Any social life they had, had to be with blacks, and therefore they went to black churches and so on. Miss White had a very rough time. Her school was burned down at least twice in the early days.” (Pg. 42-43)
She recounts, “I first met Raymond Parks [her future husband] when a mutual friend… introduced us… When he saw me, he wanted to come and call on me, but I thought he was too white. I had an aversion to white men… and Raymond Parks was very light skinned… Parks---everyone called him Parks---as a very nice person… He told me he grew up in an all-white neighborhood, completely surrounded by white people. Parks was so light, he could have passed for white, but he didn’t have white people’s hair. He was the only black child in the neighborhood, and they wouldn’t let him go to the neighborhood school because it was a white school.” (Pg. 55-57)
She continues, “I was very impressed by the fact that he didn’t seem to have that meek attitude---what we called an ‘Uncle Tom’ attitude---toward white people… Parks was also the first real activist I ever met. He was a long-time member of the NAACP … It was the spring of 1931 when we got to know each other, and the Scottsboro case had come up… he and a few others had gotten together to raise money to help … defend them in court.” (Pg. 59-60)
She recalls, “I decided to get registered [to vote]. The first year I tried was 1943. They would open the registration books only at a certain time… they might decide to have registration on a Wednesday morning from ten o’clock until noon, when they knew most black working people couldn’t be there… All this was to keep African Americans from being able to register… you either had to own property or pass the test… They could say you didn’t pass the test and there would be nothing you could do about it… the third time I took the test, I made a copy of my answers to those twenty-one questions… I was going to… use it to bring suit against the voter-registration board. But I finally received my certificate in the mail. I was finally a registered voter. The next thing I had to do was to pay my accumulated poll tax… it was mostly black people who had to pay it retroactive.” (Pg. 73-75)
She explains, “The Montgomery NAACP was beginning to think about filing suit against the city of Montgomery over bus segregation. But they had to have the right plaintiff and a strong case. The best plaintiff would be a woman, because a woman would get more sympathy than a man And the woman would have to be above reproach, have a good reputation, and have done nothing wrong but refuse to give up her seat.” (Pg. 110-111) She continues, “But that is not why I refused to give up my bus seat to a white man on Thursday, December 1, 1955. I did not intend to get arrested. If I had been paying attention, I wouldn’t even have gotten on that bus.” (Pg. 112-113)
She goes on, “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… I was not old… I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in. The driver of the bus … asked was I going to stand up. I said, ‘No.’ He said, “Well, I’m going to have you arrested.’ Then I said, ‘You may do that.’ These were the only words we said to each other… I tried not to think about what might happen. I knew that anything was possible. I could be manhandled or beaten… In fact if I let myself think too deeply about what might happen to me, I might have gotten off the bus. But I chose to remain.” (Pg. 116)
She notes, “I agreed to be the plaintiff… I had no police record, I’d worked all my life, I wasn’t pregnant with an illegitimate child. The white people couldn’t point to me and say there was anything I had done to deserve such treatment except to be born black.” (Pg. 125) She adds, “I think everybody was quite amazed at that demonstration of people staying off the buses… Never before had black people demonstrated so clearly how much those city buses depended on their business. More important, never before had the black community of Montgomery united in protest against segregation on the buses.” (Pg. 132)
She states, “Rufus Lewis … nominated Dr. King to be president of the MIA ‘[Montgomery Improvement Association]. The advantage of having Dr. King … was that he was so new to Montgomery and to civil rights work that had hadn’t been there long enough to make any strong friends or enemies.” (Pg. 136) “He was a fine speaker, and he gave a speech that really got the crowd excited… I didn’t speak. The other people spoke… I enjoyed listening to the others and seeing the enthusiasm of the audience.” (Pg. 138-139)
Years later, “Dr. King decided to call for a mass march from Selma to Montgomery… Being on that march was a strange experience… so many young people… didn’t know who I was and couldn’t care less about me because they didn’t know me. Marchers on that final lap were supposed to be wearing special-colored jacket… and I wasn’t wearing the right color… I got put out of that march three or four different times… But I kept getting back in anyway and I struggled through that crowd until I walked those eight miles to the capitol. When we got downtown, someone did have me go up to the front of the line, and I had my picture taken with … [all the] important people… Mostly I remember being put out of that march.” (Pg. 168-171)
She concludes, “To this day, I am not an absolute supporter of nonviolence in all situations. But I strongly believe that the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s would never have been so successful without Dr. King and his firm belief in nonviolence.” (Pg. 175)
Although this is theoretically a “book for young readers,” readers of all ages will love this vastly informative book about Ms. Parks and her heroic actions.
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (1913-2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery [Alabama] bus boycott; she was the secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP at the time her protest took place.
She wrote in the first chapter of this 1992 book, “For half of my life there were laws and customs in the South that kept African Americans segregated from Caucasians and allowed white people to treat black people without any respect. I never thought this was fair, and from the time I was a child, I tried to protest against disrespectful treatment. But it was very hard to do anything about segregation and racism when white people had the power of the law behind them. Somehow we had to change the laws. And we had to get enough white people on our side to be able to succeed. I had no idea when I refused to give up my seat on that Montgomery bus that my small action would help put an end to the segregation laws in the South. I only knew that I was tired of being pushed around. I was a regular person, as good as anybody else. There had been a few times in my life when I had been treated by white people like a regular person. So I knew what that felt like. It was time that other white people started treating me that way.” (Pg. 2)
She recalls, “Not all the white people in Pine Level were hostile to us black people, and I did not growing up feeling that all white people were hateful. When I was very young, I remember, there was an old, old white lady who used to take me fishing. She was real nice and treated us just like anybody else. She used to visit my grandparents a lot, and talk with them for a long time. So there were some good white people in Pine Level.” (Pg. 36-37)
When she was eleven, “My mother… sent me to school in Montgomery… most everyone called it Miss White’s school because Miss Alice L. White was the principal and co-founder… Miss White was from Melrose, Massachusetts. All her faculty were white women from the North. That meant that when they came south to educate black girls, they were ostracized by the white community in Montgomery. Any social life they had, had to be with blacks, and therefore they went to black churches and so on. Miss White had a very rough time. Her school was burned down at least twice in the early days.” (Pg. 42-43)
She recounts, “I first met Raymond Parks [her future husband] when a mutual friend… introduced us… When he saw me, he wanted to come and call on me, but I thought he was too white. I had an aversion to white men… and Raymond Parks was very light skinned… Parks---everyone called him Parks---as a very nice person… He told me he grew up in an all-white neighborhood, completely surrounded by white people. Parks was so light, he could have passed for white, but he didn’t have white people’s hair. He was the only black child in the neighborhood, and they wouldn’t let him go to the neighborhood school because it was a white school.” (Pg. 55-57)
She continues, “I was very impressed by the fact that he didn’t seem to have that meek attitude---what we called an ‘Uncle Tom’ attitude---toward white people… Parks was also the first real activist I ever met. He was a long-time member of the NAACP … It was the spring of 1931 when we got to know each other, and the Scottsboro case had come up… he and a few others had gotten together to raise money to help … defend them in court.” (Pg. 59-60)
She recalls, “I decided to get registered [to vote]. The first year I tried was 1943. They would open the registration books only at a certain time… they might decide to have registration on a Wednesday morning from ten o’clock until noon, when they knew most black working people couldn’t be there… All this was to keep African Americans from being able to register… you either had to own property or pass the test… They could say you didn’t pass the test and there would be nothing you could do about it… the third time I took the test, I made a copy of my answers to those twenty-one questions… I was going to… use it to bring suit against the voter-registration board. But I finally received my certificate in the mail. I was finally a registered voter. The next thing I had to do was to pay my accumulated poll tax… it was mostly black people who had to pay it retroactive.” (Pg. 73-75)
She explains, “The Montgomery NAACP was beginning to think about filing suit against the city of Montgomery over bus segregation. But they had to have the right plaintiff and a strong case. The best plaintiff would be a woman, because a woman would get more sympathy than a man And the woman would have to be above reproach, have a good reputation, and have done nothing wrong but refuse to give up her seat.” (Pg. 110-111) She continues, “But that is not why I refused to give up my bus seat to a white man on Thursday, December 1, 1955. I did not intend to get arrested. If I had been paying attention, I wouldn’t even have gotten on that bus.” (Pg. 112-113)
She goes on, “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… I was not old… I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in. The driver of the bus … asked was I going to stand up. I said, ‘No.’ He said, “Well, I’m going to have you arrested.’ Then I said, ‘You may do that.’ These were the only words we said to each other… I tried not to think about what might happen. I knew that anything was possible. I could be manhandled or beaten… In fact if I let myself think too deeply about what might happen to me, I might have gotten off the bus. But I chose to remain.” (Pg. 116)
She notes, “I agreed to be the plaintiff… I had no police record, I’d worked all my life, I wasn’t pregnant with an illegitimate child. The white people couldn’t point to me and say there was anything I had done to deserve such treatment except to be born black.” (Pg. 125) She adds, “I think everybody was quite amazed at that demonstration of people staying off the buses… Never before had black people demonstrated so clearly how much those city buses depended on their business. More important, never before had the black community of Montgomery united in protest against segregation on the buses.” (Pg. 132)
She states, “Rufus Lewis … nominated Dr. King to be president of the MIA ‘[Montgomery Improvement Association]. The advantage of having Dr. King … was that he was so new to Montgomery and to civil rights work that had hadn’t been there long enough to make any strong friends or enemies.” (Pg. 136) “He was a fine speaker, and he gave a speech that really got the crowd excited… I didn’t speak. The other people spoke… I enjoyed listening to the others and seeing the enthusiasm of the audience.” (Pg. 138-139)
Years later, “Dr. King decided to call for a mass march from Selma to Montgomery… Being on that march was a strange experience… so many young people… didn’t know who I was and couldn’t care less about me because they didn’t know me. Marchers on that final lap were supposed to be wearing special-colored jacket… and I wasn’t wearing the right color… I got put out of that march three or four different times… But I kept getting back in anyway and I struggled through that crowd until I walked those eight miles to the capitol. When we got downtown, someone did have me go up to the front of the line, and I had my picture taken with … [all the] important people… Mostly I remember being put out of that march.” (Pg. 168-171)
She concludes, “To this day, I am not an absolute supporter of nonviolence in all situations. But I strongly believe that the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s would never have been so successful without Dr. King and his firm belief in nonviolence.” (Pg. 175)
Although this is theoretically a “book for young readers,” readers of all ages will love this vastly informative book about Ms. Parks and her heroic actions.
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