Rosa Parks Quotes

“When asked what gave her the strength and commitment to refuse segregation, (Rosa) Parks credited her mother and grandfather "for giving me the spirit of freedom... that I should not feel because of my race or color, inferior to any person. That I should do my very best to be a respectable person, to respect myself, to expect respect from others.”
― Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

“You don't have to stand up for your rights to get justice,
sometimes you can sit for your rights like Rosa Parks.”
― Harmon Okinyo

“do the rosa parks
say no no

do the rosa parks
throw your hand in the air

do the rosa parks
say ... no no

do the rosa parks
tell them: that ain't fair”
― Nikki Giovanni, Acolytes

“Rosa Parks drew solace & sustenance from the long history of Black resistance before her time, placing her action & the Montgomery bus boycott in the continuum of Black protest. Her speech notes during the boycott read: 'Reading histories of others--Crispus Attucks through all wars--Richard Allen--Dr. Adam Clayton Powell Sr. & Jr. Women Phyllis Wheatley--Sojourner Truth--Harriet Tubman, Mary McLeod Bethune. For Parks, the ability to keep going, to know that the struggle for justice was possible amidst all the setbacks they encountered, was partly possible through reading & referencing the long Black struggle before her.”
― Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History

“The bus here because they lost Rosa Parks's bus."

"Who lost Rosa Parks's bus?"

"White people. Who the fuck else? Supposedly, every February when schoolkids visit the Rosa Parks Museum, or wherever the fuck the bus is at, the bus they tell the kids is the birthplace of the civil rights movement is a phony. Just some old Birmingham city bus they found in some junkyard. That's what my sister says, anyway."

"I don't know."

Cuz took two deep swallows of gin. "What you mean, 'You don't know'? You think that after Rosa Parks bitch-slapped white America, some white rednecks going to go out of their way to save the original bus? That'd be like the Celtics hanging Magic Johnson's jersey in the rafters of the Boston Garden. No fucking way.”
― Paul Beatty, The Sellout

“shame the bad
comfort the good
do the rosa parks
just like she would”
― Nikki Giovanni, Acolytes

“[Rosa Parks] also found it annoying that people reduced her resistance to segregation to tired feet when her feet were never the problem--the problem was injustice.... And she didn't like that she was only known for that day on the bus when she held a lifetime of political experiences.”
― Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

“...if you can't treat this person properly there is something fundamentally wrong with your system.”
― Jonathan Scott Holloway

“Rosa Parks immediately thought of Emmett Till when she was on the bus
She refused to get up when she remembered
what he went through
Evil will attack and say that you are helping to cause a fuss
That’s why you have to see that it’s trying to distract you from what’s true”
― Aida Mandic, Turn The Tables

“Black women - the world knows that we are strong because our strength is legendary. We are Harriet Tubman, Michelle Obama, and Rosa Parks. We are Oprah Winfrey, Nanny, and Mae Jameson. We are Shirley Chisholm, Portia Simpson and Maya Angelou. We have birthed a nation, rescued slaves, built empires, traveled to space and written our place in history. Survival is not enough; we were built to rise.”
― Janet Autherine, The Heart and Soul of Black Women: Poems of Love, Struggle and Resilience