Rosa Parks Facts for Kids

A Picture of Rosa Parks
  • Name: Rosa Parks
  • Profession: Civil Rights Activist
  • Born: February 4th, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States
  • Died: October 24th, 2005 in Detroit, Michigan, United States
  • Resting Place: Detroit’s Woodlawn Cemetery
  • Legacy: Famous for her refusal to give up a bus seat in 1955

24 Rosa Parks Facts for Kids

  1. Rosa Parks was a civil right activist in the mid to late 20th century.
  2. Rosa Parks is most famous for her refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger.
  3. Rosa Parks legal birthname was Rosa Louise McCauley.
  4. Rosa Parks was born on February 4th, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States.
  5. Rosa Parks was the daughter of James and Leona McCauley.
  6. Rosa Parks married Raymond Parks in 1932.
  7. Rosa and Raymond Parks never had any children together.
  8. In December 1943, Parks joined the NAACP and became active in the civil rights movement. She was elected secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP.
  9. In 1944, Parks investigated the gang-rape of African American Recy Taylor by six white men.
  10. On November 27th, 1955, Rosa would learn about the acquittal of two men accused of murdering Emmett Till. She learns this just four days before her Montgomery bus incident.
  11. On December 1st, 1955 Rose parks boarded a bus in Montgomery Alabama. She sat in the first row of the section of the bus designated for African Americans. As the bus filled up the bus driver demanded that Parks and other African Americans give up their seats to Caucasians who were standing. Parks refused and was arrested for allegedly breaking Chapter 6, Section 11 segregation law of the Montgomery City code.
  12. On December 5th, 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott was started. This boycott was fueled by the actions and arrest of Rosa Parks just several days earlier.
  13. On December 20th, 1956, the Montgomery bus boycott ended when the United States Supreme Court ruled that the segregation laws for buses in Alabama were unconstitutional during the case Browder v. Gayle.
  14. In 1957, Parks was hired as a hostess for an inn at Hampton Institute.
  15. In 1958, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his booked titled “Stride Towards Freedom” that the arrest of Rosa Parks on December 1st, 1955 for her refusal to give up a bus seat was the catalyst for the Montgomery bus boycott.
  16. In 1964, Parks helped American politician John Conyers win his first election for the 1st District in Michigan for the U.S. House of Representatives.
  17. Between 1964 and 1988, Parks served on John Conyers staff as a secretary and receptionist.
  18. In 1977, Parks loses both her husband and her only brother to cancer.
  19. In 1979, Parks loses her mother to geriatric dementia and cancer.
  20. In 1980, Parks helped co-found the Rosa L. Parks Scholarship Foundation. This foundation awards college scholarships to high school seniors in Michigan. About 40 scholarships worth $2,000 are awarded every year.
  21. In 1987, Parks and Elaine E. Steele both founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development.
  22. In 1992, Parks published her autobiography titled “Rose Parks: My Story” at the age of 79.
  23. On August 30th, 1994, Parks was assaulted and robbed in her home by Joseph Skipper.
  24. In 1999, Parks had a cameo appearance in Touched by an Angel, an American fantasy drama television show.

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