The Rosa Parks Story

Essay by noree_moneo April 2006

download word file, 1 pages 0.0

The film is about the life of Civil Rights social activist Rosa Parks. The film explores Rosa Parks' life from her childhood to the historic moment when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger.

Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. At the age of 11, she enrolled in the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private school where little girls were thought how to dress up a dinner table, ironing clothes, etc. The school was founded by liberal-minded women from the northern United States. The philosophy of the school matched what Rosa's mother has once told her: "take advantage of the opportunities, no matter how few they are."

Later, she married barber Raymond Parks and they settled in Montgomery. She graduated from high school in 1934 and then, she and her husband joined the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP).

Then came the night of December 1, 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white passenger. There were no more places left in the white section of the bus and there were few left in the section reserved for "coloured people". The white passenger asked Rosa Parks for her seat but she didn't move. The bus driver told her to move and again, she refused. She was finally arrested and fined for violating a city law. The bus incident led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association by Martin Luther King Jr. The boycott of the Montgomery bus line for 381 days finally resulted in a ruling of the 1956 Supreme Court declaring that segregation was now illegal on city buses. Moreover, Rosa Parks' quiet and courageous act eventually led the way to the end of legal...