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Rosa Parks

by Justine from Innisfil, Ontario, Canada


Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. She had one brother named Sylvester, her mother’s name was Leona and her father’s name was James. Her parents got divorced. Rosa was home-schooled until age 11, then she went to school at Montgomery Industrial School for girls. She was born in Tuskegee but she moved to Montgomery when she was really young. While she went to school she started to really like sewing.

Rosa’s parents and grandparents were her main influences. They influenced her by teaching her to stick up for herself and her rights. Her mother was a teacher and she believed in freedom so she taught her children to believe in freedom. That was influential because later in 1955 she stuck up for her rights and those of all African Americans.

Rosa Parks experienced a lot of challenges in her life, challenges such as when she was very young her parents were divorced so she really didn’t see much of her dad growing up because she lived with her mother. Then later on in 1955 she got arrested. Since she stuck up for all those that are African American she had to be careful in everything she did because she had a lot of people that looked up to her.


My hero, Rosa Parks felt that it was important that colored people were treated no different than white people. She is a colored person and I am a white person so we have different perspectives on life. But I still think she is right about everyone having the same rights. I chose Rosa Parks to be my hero because I think she was very brave to stand up for her beliefs, and then she changed the law for something that bothered her every day even though it was really small, it made a really big difference for everyone. Rosa displayed courage because she knew she could and probably would get in a lot of trouble but she knew that it was the right thing to do. She showed independence because even though she had lots of help from family and friends, she did most of the work so that African Americans have the rights that they do now. She also had integrity, because she shared the truth about how she felt about how coloured people were being treated so she did something about how she felt and it worked, she changed the law.

I have nothing else to say about Rosa Parks except that she is a great person no matter what colour she was. She was very brave for all that she did for this world. I also think that everyone should look and see what Rosa did.

Page created on 6/18/2008 12:00:00 AM

Last edited 6/18/2008 12:00:00 AM

The beliefs, viewpoints and opinions expressed in this hero submission on the website are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs, viewpoints and opinions of The MY HERO Project and its staff.