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On Dec. 1, 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks, a seamstress for a department store in Montgomery, Alabama, boarded a bus to go home after a long day at work. She took a seat in the "Colored Section" but when the bus got crowded she was asked to give up her seat to a white passenger. When she refused to give up her seat, the bus driver threatened to have her arrested. Parks replied "You may go on and do so." Her arrest launched the Montgomery Bus boycott. Thousands of posters were printed urging "every Negro to stay off the buses ... If you work, take a cab or walk. Please stay off the buses..." The boycott lasted for 381 days and ended only when the United States Supreme Court declared Alabama's laws requiring segregation on buses illegal.
LIFE BEFORE CIVIL RIGHTS
How do you feel about the way black Americans used to be treated?
I always felt badly because our people were not treated fairly. We should have been free and given the same opportunities others had.
How did it feel not to have civil rights?
Of course it felt like we should all be free people and we should have the same rights as other people. In the South, at that time, there was legally enforced segregation. There were places black people couldn't go, and rights we did not have. This was not acceptable to me. A lot of other people didn't disobey the rules because they didn't want to get into trouble. I was willing to get arrested - it was worth the consequences.
When you were little, did you understand that black people weren't treated fairly?
When I was a young child I couldn't understand why black people weren't treated fairly. But when I did learn about it, I didn't feel very good about it.
How do you feel about the people who treated you so unfairly?
I don't think well of people who are prejudiced against people because of race. The only way for prejudiced people to change is for them to decide for themselves that all human beings should be treated fairly. We can't force them to think that way.
Were you allowed to learn to read when you were little?
Well, yes. I was born 50 years after slavery, in 1913. I was allowed to read. My mother, who was a teacher, taught me when I was a very young child.
The first school I attended was a small building that went from first to sixth grade. There was one teacher for all of the students. There could be anywhere from 50 to 60 students of all different ages. From 5 or 6 years old to in their teens. We went to school five months out of the year. The rest of the time young people would be available to work on the farm. The parents had to buy whatever the student used. Often, if your family couldn't afford it, you had no access to books, pencils, whatever. However, often the children would share. I liked to read all sorts of stories, like fairy tales - Little Red Riding Hood, Mother Goose. I read very often.
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Adapted from Scholastic.com/teacher. Copyright( 2001 by Scholastic Inc. and the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Scholastic Inc.
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