Timeline of Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks was called the 'mother of modern-day civil rights movement'. She changed the way in which blacks were treated in America. She rebelled against the bus segregation law in Montgomery.

Rosa Parks Timeline

1913: Rosa Parks was born on February 4, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her name before marriage was Rosa Louise McCauley. While, her father was a carpenter and her mother was a teacher.
1918: Rosa's parents separated and she shifted to her grandparent's house with her mother. She started attending Pine Level, a one-room schoolhouse in Alabama.
1925: Rosa Parks was admitted to Miss White's School for girls, a segregated school, in Montgomery, Alabama.
1929: Rosa Parks dropped out of Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes, when she was in the eleventh grade. She gave up school as she had to take care of her grandmother who was unwell.
1932: Rosa McCauley got married to Raymond Parks in Pine Level. Raymond Parks was a barber in Montgomery. He forced Rosa to complete her high school education.
1934: When she was twenty years old, Rosa received her school diploma. She joined her husband to raise funds for the defense of a group of black boys known as Scottsboro boys. Scottsboro boys was a group of black men who were falsely accused of raping two white women.
1943: Rosa joined the NAACP (National Association for Advancement of Colored People) and was elected as a volunteer secretary to this association. Edgar Daniel Nixon was the President of NAACP at that time. She became an active member of the civil rights movement, after she joined NAACP. She remained a volunteer of NAACP for thirteen years.
1945: In April, Rosa Parks finally got a chance to register for voting after three attempts, which resulted in failure every time.
1950: In early 1950s, Rosa started working as an assistant to a tailor in a departmental store. She also worked as a part-time needlewoman with Clifford Durr. Durr and his wife were a liberal white couple, who helped Rosa in her civil rights activity.
1954: Rosa received a scholarship for attending a workshop in Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee. The school was for community leaders and taught desegregation. Rosa spent several weeks in Highlander Folk School.
1955: Segregated seating policies in buses were implemented in Montgomery. On 1st December, Rosa Parks was asked to evacuate the front seat, so that whites could get a place to sit. She was reluctant to do so and was arrested by the police. Edgar Nixon of NAACP and Clifford Durr, her employer, posted a bond to the police and Rosa was released after a day. On 5th December, the Montgomery Improvement Association was started in the Holt Street Baptist Church. A 381-day long protest that followed resulted in a district court declaration that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional.
1956: The U.S. Supreme Court declared desegregation on public buses. Rosa lost her job at the departmental store.
1957: Rosa and her husband relocated to Detroit, Michigan, where she struggled financially for eight years.
1963: She participated in the March on Washington civil rights rally, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his 'I have a Dream' speech.
1965: Rosa participated in the Selma to Montgomery March for voting rights for African-Americans.
1967: Rosa started working as an assistant administrative officer for Congressman John Conyers in Detroit, and held this position for twenty years.
1977: Rosa's husband Raymond died, after a five-year battle with cancer.
1979: The NAACP awarded Rosa Parks with Spingarn Medal, their highest award.
1980: Rosa was given the prestigious Martin Luther King Jr. Award for her leadership in the Civil Rights Movement.
1987: She founded the Rosa and Raymond Institute for self-development in her husband's memory. She co-founded this institute with the help of Elaine Elson to teach young Americans the history of civil rights in America. Parks's book, Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialog With Today's Youth, was published.
1992: Rosa Parks published her autobiography My Story.
1995: Quiet Strength, Rosa's second book, which gave an account of incidences in her life, was published. She participated in the Million Man March, held for the betterment of African-American people.
1996: Rosa received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest award given to a civilian, from President Bill Clinton.
1999: Rosa Parks was conferred with the Congressional Medal, highest civilian award given by the Congress.
2000: Rosa Parks met Pope John Paul II and asked him for racial healing. Rosa Parks Library and Museum was opened at the Troy State University, Montgomery.
2005: She was recipient of the first annual Cardinal Dearden Peace Award, at Holy Catholic Church, in Detroit. She died on 24th October, due to progressive dementia.

Rosa Parks was a perfect picture of courage, determination and dignity and a quiet hero in the civil rights movement.