Rosa Parks

One of the most infulential and inspirational women of all time was Rosa Parks. By one action she helped change the lives of a majority ofAfrican Americans and more importantly society as a whole. Rosa Parks sparked the attention of America when she refused to settle for the black (lower class)standards. Not only did she help change the lives for many African Americans but she helped equality for all men and women in the United States. By one brave women our world will be forever thankful. Rosa Parks was raised in her Grandparents hosue in pine LEvel, Montgomery County, in Alabama. Her Mother's name was Leona Edwards and her father James McCauley was a carpenter. On February 4, 1913 Rosa was born, ya year after her parents were married. At around the age of two her father took off North looking for a better like. As a child Rosa and her brother grew up with segregation and such societies as the Ku Klux Klan. Her grandfather would often sleep with a rifle by his side due to the unsafe environment. By the time Rosa Parks went to school she began to feel unhappy about the society she was living in. She soon noticed the segregation of their society when she saw the empty and little school for blacks compared to the glamorous and bih school the whites had. At that point on in Rosa's life she decided she was going to be a person with dignity and self-respect. She promised herself she would never set her dreams lower than anyone else in the world simply because she was black. She wanted a change and was determined to make it happen. At age nineteen Rosa married a man named Raymond Park, who died of cancer in 1977 after a close fifty years of marraige. When Raymond was living he ha dalways influenced her to become more active in civil rights among blacks. Her hopes for abetter future were just begining.

By 1945 Rosa was a leader in the Montgomery Voters League and the secretary of the NAtionals Association for the Advacement of Colored People(NAACP). One evening