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| | | Short Biography of Rosa Parks Date of Birth: Born on February 4, 1913 Place of Birth : Tuskegee, Alabama Parents: Father - James McCauley, a carpenter Mother: Leona McCauley, a teacher Background Facts, Information & Ancestry : Rosa Parks was of African-American, Cherokee-Creek and Scots-Irish ancestrySegregation and Civil Rights Background Facts: 1875: Civil Rights Act of 1875 Under Amendment XIV, Congress passes a law that makes racial discrimination in public accommodations illegal. 1883: Civil Rights Act overturned. The Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional and that the Fourteenth Amendment forbids States, but not citizens, from discriminating 1896: Plessy v. Ferguson case upheld a Louisiana law that required whites and blacks to occupy separate railroad cars. Established "separate but equal" doctrine. Segregation of public transportation. Tennessee segregated railroad cars, followed by Florida (1887), Mississippi (1888), Texas (1889), Louisiana (1890), Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Georgia (1891), South Carolina (1898), North Carolina (1899), Virginia (1900), Maryland (1904), and Oklahoma (1907) | |
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| | 1913 | This Rosa Parks timeline starts on February 4, 1913 when Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her parents were James McCauley, a carpenter and Schoolteacher Leona McCauley | |
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| | 1915 | August 20: Her brother, Sylvester McCauley was born | |
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| | 1917 | The family moved from Tuskegee to Pine Level, Alabama | |
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| | 1919 | Rosa received some of her education at home and also attended the rural school in Pine Level | |
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| | 1924 | Rosa is enrolled in Montgomery Industrial School for Girls (Miss White's School for Girls), a private institution | |
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| | 1928 | 1928: She attends Booker T. Washington High School for ninth grade, but drops out when her grand mother becomes seriously ill and subsequently dies | |
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| | 1929 | For 10th and 11th grades, she attends Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes. | |
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| | 1932 | December 18: Marries Raymond Parks, a barber, at 19. | |
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| | 1934 | Receives her high school diploma with the help and encouragement of her husband Raymond Parks | |
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| | 1934 | 1935: Baltimore Court rules Donald Murray must be admitted to white law school | |
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| | 1939 | WW2 begins | |
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| | 1943 | 12 years before her famous stand Rosa Parks bravely refuses to give up her seat and is ejected from a racially segregated bus. She then tries to register to vote and is denied. She becomes secretary of the Montgomery NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an organization formed to promote use of the courts to restore the legal rights of black Americans) | |
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| | 1945 | WW2 ends Rosa Parks finally receives certificate for voting after three attempts | |
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| | 1946 | June 3: The U.S. Supreme Court banned segregation in interstate bus travel Aug 10: Race riots occur in Athens, Alabama September 29: Race riots erupt in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania December 5: The National Committee on Civil Rights is created by President Harry Truman to investigate racism in America | |
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| | 1947 | April 9: "Freedom Riders" tested the laws of interstate bus travel in the segregated South April 15: Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play major league baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers Committee on Civil Rights under President Truman condemn racial injustices towards Blacks in America in a report dated October 29, 1947, entitled "To Secure These Rights." | |
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| | 1949 | Rosa and her husband Raymond work with Montgomery branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP's) programs. Rosa Parks acts as secretary and later a youth leader | |
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| | 1954 | May 17: U.S Supreme Court rules that racial segregation in the public schools of America was unconstitutional | |
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| | 1955 | May 31: U.S. Supreme Court orders desegregation of the public schools "with all deliberate speed" August: Rosa Parks meets Martin Luther King August 28: Emmett Till, age 14, was tortured and lynched in Money, Mississippi November 25: The Interstate Commerce Commission bans segregation in buses and all waiting rooms involved in interstate travel December 1: Rosa Parks is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give her seat on the bus to a white passenger. She is arrested, fingerprinted, jailed by police and fined $14. December 5: She stands trial and is found guilty of breaking the segregation laws. December 5: Martin Luther King becomes the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which was organised due to protest against the incident involving Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott begins which will last 381 days. | |
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| | 1956 | January: Rosa Parks loses her job as a seamstress at Montgomery Fair December 21: The Montgomery buses are desegregated and black passengers could legally take any seat on the city's buses | |
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| | 1957 | 1957: Rosa Parks, her husband and mother move to Detroit where she works as a seamstress Rosa then leaves to work at Virginia University in Hampton January – The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is formed to form a strategy for ending segregation, and Martin Luther King is elected president. September 9: Congress of the United States passes the Civil Rights Act of 1957 September 24/25: President Eisenhower sent in federal troops to enforce integration of schools in Little Rock. Nine black students were escorted into the school by court order | |
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| | 1958 | September 20: Dr. Martin Luther King is stabbed by a woman while at a book signing in a department store in Harlem, New York | |
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| | 1959 | Rosa Parks returns to Detroit | |
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| | 1960 | May 6: President Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960 into law | |
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| | 1961 | May 4: An integrated group of 'Freedom Riders' left Washington, DC on Greyhound buses, and, upon arrival near Anniston, Alabama, the bus was burned, and the riders were beaten October 16: Martin Luther King meets with President Kennedy to gain his support for the civil rights movement. December 16: Dr. King and other protesters are arrested in Albany, Georgia
Rosa Parks helps a friend open sewing factory on the west-side of Detroit | |
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| | 1962 | September 30: Riots break out on the campus at the University of Mississippi | |
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| | 1963 | April 3: Birmingham, Alabama police chief, Eugene "Bull" Connor, becomes a symbol of racism when he broadcasts his methods of using dogs and fire hoses to stop peaceful demonstrators of the Black protest movement June 11: Governor George Wallace stands in the door of the University of Alabama, refusing the entrance of Black students June 12: Civil Rights Leader Medgar Evers was assassinated in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi August 28: Martin Luther King meets with President John F. Kennedy and after their meeting Dr. King delivers his famous "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a crowd estimated at 250,000 at the Marched on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Rosa Parks is one of the many in the crowd. Rosa Parks speaks at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) November 22: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated | |
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| | 1964 | June 11: Martin Luther King is arrested in St. Augustine, Florida for attempting to eat in a white-only restaurant July 2: Dr. King invited to the White House while President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Public Accommodation and Fair Employment sections to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 August 4: Three civil rights workers were killed on a trip through Philadelphia, Mississippi. Their names were James Chaney who was black and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner who were both white Rosa Parks ecomes Deaconess in the AME Church in Detroit (African Methodist Episcopal Church) | |
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| | 1965 | February 21: Malcolm X is assassinated in New York City March 7: The Edmund Pettus Bridge incident took place in Selma, Alabama where marchers were beaten and tear-gassed March 17 – 25: King and 25,000 other protestors, including Rosa Parks, march from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights. March 25: Mrs. Viola Liuzzo was killed driving some of the black marchers back to Selma August 6: The 1965 Voting Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson August 11/12: The Watts Riots erupted in California when Thirty-five people died. The National Guard had been called in to stop America's worst racial disturbance. Rosa Parks begins working for Congressman John Conyers 1st District of Michigan in Detroit | |
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| | 1966 | January 13: Robert C. Weaver becomes the first Black to serve in the cabinet as Secretary of Housing and Urban Affairs June 6: James Meredith was shot and wounded on the "March Against Fear" from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson Mississippi June 27: SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) leader Stokely Carmichael publicly uses the militant term, "Black Power" in Greenwood, Mississippi, July 18-23: The National Guard are called in when Summer Riots break out in Chicago, Illinois, Cleveland, Omaha, Nebraska and Ohio | |
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| | 1967 | May 1 - October 1: Summer riots where 43 people are killed | |
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| | 1968 | April 4: While standing on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee Dr. Martin Luther King is shot and killed | |
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| | 1977 | 1977: Her husband, Raymond Parks, 74, dies of cancer. | |
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| | 1979 | 1979 Rosa Parks receives NAACP's Spingarn Medal | |
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| | 1980 | 1980: The Detroit News and Detroit Public Schools establish the Rosa Parks Scholarship Foundation, honoring the 25th anniversary of her stand in Montgomery | |
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| | 1987 | 1987: She founds the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development with long time friend Elaine Eason Steele which offers guidance to young blacks | |
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| | 1988 | 1988: Rosa Parks retires from Congressman John Conyers' office. 1988 Retires from Conyers Detroit office | |
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| | 1989 | The First Pathways to Freedom ride is started (an historical education program) A Bust of Rosa Parks unveiled at the Smithsonian | |
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| | 1992 | Rosa publishes her first book, "Rosa Parks My Story" | |
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| | 1994 | Rosa Parks is assaulted and robbed of $53 in the home she rents in Detroit. The robber is arrested and convicted | |
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| | 1995 | Rosa Parks speaks at the Million Man March in Washington She is hospitalized after a fall in her apartment The Rosa Parks Learning Center opens at Botsford Commons, a senior community in Michigan where young people mentor senior citizens on the use of computers | |
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| | 1996 | Rosa Parks receives the Medal of Freedom President Bill Clinton | |
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| | 1997 | The first Monday following February 4th is designated as Rosa Parks Day in the State of Michigan | |
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| | 1998 | April 21: The Rosa Parks Museum and Library is opened at her arrest site in Montgomery, Alabama September 2: The Rosa L. Parks Learning Center is opened Rosa Parks takes Pathways to Freedom ride to Nova Scotia and receives an honorary degree from Mt. Saint Vincent University Rosa is inducted into the International Women's Forum Hall of Fame | |
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| | 1999 | President Clinton awards Rosa the 250th Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, the highest honor a civilian can receive in the United States Rosa Parks meets with the Pope in St. Louis and reads a statement to the Pope asking for racial healing. May 2: Rosa Parks appeared in a TV episode of Touched By An Angel | |
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| | 2000 | December 1: Opening of Rosa Parks Museum and Library at Troy State University Montgomery, on the site where she was arrested in 1955 September: Rosa attends an audience with the Queen of Swaziland | |
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| | 2001 | April 30 -May 23: Filming of "The Rosa Parks Story" CBS Television Movie | |
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| | 2002 | February 24: Showing of: "The Rosa Parks Story" CBS Television Movie | |
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| | 2003 | October 29: Rosa Parks is honored with the International Institute Heritage Hall of Fame Award She is diagnosed with progressive dementia. | |
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| | 2005 | October 24: Rosa Parks dies on in her Detroit home November 2: Rosa Parks' funeral service, seven hours long, was held at the Greater Grace Temple Church. | |
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