Rosa Parks

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                  Do you know who Rosa Parks is? She is an African American woman known as the mother of the modern day civil right movement. She is called the mother because she played a big role in the C.R.M.

                  Rosa parks was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her parents' names were James and Leona McCauley.  Her father, James was a carpenter and her mother, Leona was a teacher. As a young girl, Rosa worked as a field hand, tended to household chores, and cared for her ill grandparents. Her mother spent much of her time teaching. Soon, her mother decided that Rosa should go to a nine-month school in Alabama. Then, Rosa enrolled for Montgomery Industrial School for Girls. Rosa was in charge of doing chores and work outside the house. By the time she was eleven, Rosa's childhood seemed far behind. She cleaned two classrooms at her school in exchange for free tuition. After graduation, she enrolled in Booker T. Washington High School. Then her mother became sick so Rosa had no choice but to drop out of school to take care of her mother.

                  Rosa parks faced many hardships.  One hardship Rosa Parks faced was when she had to go to jail. This was a hardship because she had to overcome being in jail for standing up for herself and doing what was right. By overcoming that hardship she helped change the "Jim Crow" laws and now African Americans can sit anywhere they like to.

                    In Montgomery, most towns in the Deep South had segregated buses. Rosa Parks and other civil rights activists considered using these approaches in Montgomery. Under pressure from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, this never took place. Thurgood Marshall, head of the NAACP's legal department, was strongly against these approaches and warned that a "disobedience movement on the part of Negroes and their white allies, if employed in the South, would result in wholesale slaughter with no good achieved."

                  In early 1955, Claudette Colvin, a 15 year old black girl was dragged off a bus in Montgomery. She got arrested for not giving up her seat to a white person. "The NAACP now agreed to take up the Colvin incident as a test case. It was believed that this would result in a similar outcome to the 1954 Supreme Court decision on segregation in education."

                      Rosa Parks has inspired me because she makes me think I can do anything I believe is right. She also inspired me because she stood up for what she believed.