Rosa Parks

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February 4, 1913
Rosa Louise McCauley born in Tuskegee, Alabama, the daughter of a carpenter and a schoolteacher.
1915
• Baptized in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church Moves with her mother and younger brother to her grandparents’ farm in Pine Level, Alabama
1918
• Begins attending segregated elementary school in Pine Level
1924
• Enrolls in the Montgomery Industrial School, a private school run by Northern liberal white women, popularly known as “Miss White’s Industrial School for Girls”
Dec. 1932
• Marries Raymond Parks, a barber, in Pine Level, Alabama
1931-33
• Raymond is active in the National Committee to Defend the Scottsboro Boys, eight black youths unjustly convicted of raping two white women
1933
• Receives high school diploma and attends Alabama State College in Montgomery
1941
• Works as a secretary at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, an integrated federal facility; rides on integrated buses on the base
1942
• Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) formed
1943
• Is denied the right to register to vote, Is put off a city bus for refusing to enter by the back door Becomes secretary of the Montgomery NAACP
1944
• Is denied the right to vote for a second time
1945
• Successfully registers to vote at last 1946. Attends a NAACP leadership training seminar in Jacksonville, Florida
1947
• Begins working as a seamstress in a local tailoring shop
1948
• President Harry Truman orders the desegregation of U.S. military forces Makes a speech before the Alabama NAACP convention and is elected secretary of the state convention
1949
• Becomes adviser to NAACP Youth Council
1954
• U.S. Supreme Court rules that “separate but equal” doctrine is unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education Summer 1955 Attends civil rights workshop at the Highlander Folk School, a populist labor/civil rights organizing center located in Monteagle, Tennessee The news of a 14-year old black boy from Chicago, Emmett Till, brutally murdered and mutilated in Mississippi draws national attention and wide sympathy for “the Negro cause.”
Dec. 1, 1955
• Arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus
Dec. 5, 1955
• Stands trial and is convicted of disorderly conduct Attends the first mass meeting of the Montgomery Improvement Association led by Martin Luther King, Jr. The Montgomery Bus Boycott begins
Feb. 21, 1956
• Is indicted along with 89 others for boycotting city buses
Nov. 13, 1956
• U.S. Supreme Court rules segregation on Montgomery buses to be Unconstitutional
Dec. 21, 1956
• Montgomery City buses are integrated for the first time; the bus boycott is ended after 381 days
1957
• Moves to Detroit, President Dwight Eisenhower sends the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division to protect black students integrating the Little Rock (Arkansas) Central High School Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) is founded with Martin Luther King, Jr., as its first president
1958
• Leaving her husband and mother behind in Detroit, Rosa Parks works for a year at the all-black Hampton Institute in Virginia
1959
• Returns to Detroit and begins working as a seamstress again
1960
• Black college students stage lunch counter sit-ins at the Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth’s Civil Rights Act of 1960 signed into law Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formed Summer 1961 Black and white college students test segregated buses in a widespread movement known as the Freedom Rides; racist violence against them brings more national support for civil rights
1961
May 4 CORE Freedom Ride begins from Washington D.C. to New Orleans to test Boynton v Virginia.
May 14 Freedom Riders attacked by mobs in Anniston, Alabama and Birmingham
1962
• President John F. Kennedy federalizes Mississippi National Guard to secure the admission of James Meredith to the University of Mississippi
1963
• Attends the March on Washington, Addresses the national meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Massive Civil Rights Demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, and the response of the white power structure—the use of fire hoses and police dogs—are seen for the first time on national television
Four young girls were bombed in Sixteenth Street Baptist Church 09/15/63 (extra: two young boys were also killed that same morning: Virgil Lamar Ware and Johnny Robinson)1964
Freedom Summer (Mississippi) James Chaney, Michael Swerner, and Andrew Goodman were killed.1965
• President Lyndon B. Johnson declares, “We Shall Overcome,” on national television Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed into law 1965, Participates in the Selma-to-Montgomery March Joins Coretta Scott King in speaking before the national meeting of the Women’s Public Affairs Committee of 1,000, a multiracial group dedicated racial harmony Begins working as an aide to Congressman John Conyers Voting Rights Act of 1965 signed into law Malcolm X, a radical black spokesman, is assassinated Riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles
1968
• Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated and urban riots rock the nation
1970
• Receives the Spingarn Award, the NAACP’s highest honor for contributions to civil rights
1977
• Raymond Parks dies
1987
• Founds the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development
1988
• Retires from Congressman Conyers’ office
1994
• Is attacked in her Detroit home by a young man demanding money
1995
• Addresses the Million Man March in Washington, D.C.
1996
• President Bill Clinton awards her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the U.S. government
1999
• Receives the Congressional Gold Medal
2000
• Attends the dedication of the Rosa Parks Museum at the Troy State University, Montgomery
October 24, 2005
• Rosa Parks dies at Age 92
October 31, 2005
Rosa Parks Lies in Honor at U.S. Capitol
In Washington, over 10,000 people began lining up Sunday outside the Capitol to pay homage to civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks who died last week at the age of 92. Parks’ body is lying in honor at the U.S. Capitol in the Rotunda. According to Senate historian Richard Baker, Parks is the first private citizen to ever be accorded the honor. She is also the first woman and second African-American to lie in honor at the Capitol. The tribute is usually reserved for heads of state. President Reagan was the last person to lie in state at the Capitol. A memorial service will be held today at the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington. Her body will then be flown to Detroit for a funeral on Wednesday. On Sunday a memorial service was also in Montgomery Alabama. We’ll have more on Rosa Parks later in the show.