WEBVTT - What Do People Get Wrong About Rosa Parks? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:07.040 Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, 0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:10.880 Lauren Boglebaum here. Most of us know Rosa Parks as 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:14.280 the African American woman who quietly but firmly refused to 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:16.200 give up her bus seat to a white person on 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:21.279 December one, n in Montgomery, Alabama. That small act of 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:25.080 resistance sparked the year long Montgomery Bus Boycott, which in 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:28.360 turn kickstarted national efforts to end racial segregation in the 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.440 United States. In honor of that, we wanted to fill 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:35.360 in some of the often misunderstood circumstances surrounding parks resistance. 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:40.360 To start with. This wasn't some totally random act. Parks 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:42.760 was a lifelong activist, and she came from a family 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.880 of activists. Parks was born in nineteen thirteen to James 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:50.199 and Leona mcaulay. The couple separated two years later, and 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:52.479 Parks's mother moved the family to her parents farm in 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:57.040 Pine Level, Alabama. Park's grandparents, Rose and Sylvester Edwards, were 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.840 former slaves who strongly believed in racial equality. One of 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.440 parks early memories was of her grandfather's standing guard with 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:06.440 his shotgun as the Ku Klux Klan marched down their street. 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:09.440 And of him telling her stories about black history and 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:13.679 courageous figures like Crisps Attics, Harriett Tebman, and Marcus Garvey. 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.319 In nineteen thirty two, when she was nineteen, Rosa McCauley 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.640 married Raymond Parks, an active member of the National Association 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.240 for the Advancement of Colored People or n double A CP, 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:27.760 Parks began her civil rights activism shortly after graduating from 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:30.360 high school and continued until shortly before her death in 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.520 two thousand five at age ninety two. She served for 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:35.800 years as secretary to the president of n w A 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.440 CPS Montgomery Chapter. Parks also worked on issues such as 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.560 voter registration, desegregation of schools and public spaces, and justice 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:47.280 for black victims of white brutality. In addition, she participated 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.320 in numerous major civil rights events, such as the nineteen 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.320 sixty three March on Washington and the nineteen sixty five 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:56.760 Selma to Montgomery March. Parks was also an activist for 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.840 women's rights and ending the Vietnam War. At one time, 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:03.040 she served on the board of Planned Parenthood. When she 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:05.880 made her famous stand, it wasn't her first interaction with 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:09.280 the bus driver. The driver James E. Blake often made 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:13.359 derogatory marks to African Americans, especially women. He also made 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.360 black people get off his bus after paying, then reboard 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.160 in the rear, and sometimes he'd drive away before they 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.760 got back. On twelve years before the boycott in nineteen 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.040 forty three, Blake tried to make Parks reboard after paying. 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.000 She refused, and he tried to push her off the bus. 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.680 After that, Parks avoided Blake's bus no matter what, But 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:35.560 on that faithful day she didn't notice Blake was the 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.680 driver when she stepped on board. Her family reports that 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.760 Parks was distracted thinking about Emmett till as news had 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.080 just come out that his lynchers were going to go free. 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.600 But about that famous stand. In telling the story, sometimes 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.480 it's mistakenly said that she sat in the whites only section. 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:57.639 What really happened was this. In Montgomery's buses had thirty 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.720 six seats. The first ten were reserved for white people, 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.960 the middle sixteen were first come, first served, with priority 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.440 given to white people, and the last ten were for 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:09.680 black people. Parks sat down in the first row of 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:12.519 the middle section, next to a black man two black 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:15.480 women's out across the aisle. The other black people got 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:18.040 up when Blake told them to. Parks, as we know, 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.800 did not, and she didn't refuse to give up her 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:26.040 best seat because her feet hurt. She wrote in her autobiography, 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:28.760 I was not tired physically, or no more tired than 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:30.480 I usually was at the end of a working day. 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.120 I was not old, although some people have an image 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.200 of me as being old then I was forty two. No, 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:38.960 the only tired I was was tired of giving in. 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:43.640 Several months before Parks refused to give up her seat, 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.280 fifteen year old Claudette Colvin did the same thing, but 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:50.640 unlike Parks, Colvin made a scene and was physically removed 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:54.520 by police officers. Some say parks refusal ignited the boycott 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:58.800 and not Colvin's because Parks was calm, polite, and slightly older, 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.880 which made her more s at figure, and Parkes was 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:03.760 well known and liked in the community through her work 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.800 with the n double a c P. However, it was Colvin, 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.280 not Parks, who was part of the lawsuit changing the 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:14.520 constitutionality of bus segregation in Montgomery. You may have seen 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:17.720 photos of Parks mug shot or being fingerprinted, but those 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.760 are not from that first famous arrest there from two 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.880 months later, with the Montgomery bus boycott going strong, when 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:27.240 Parks was helping arrange carpool rides to people who refused 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:31.279 to ride the buses, on February twenty ninety six, a 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.400 grand jury indicted Parks and others for violating in Alabama 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:39.359 law prohibiting organized boycotts. Once again, Parks was arrested and jailed. 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.520 The Montgomery bus boycott lasted one days and ended when 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:47.599 the Supreme Court said segregation on public transportation was unconstitutional. 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.040 Although the boycott was a success, it threw Rosa and 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:56.119 Raymond parks life into turmoil. Montgomery Fair Department store, where 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:59.640 Parks worked as a seamstress, fired her. Raymond was also 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:01.960 fired his job after his boss said he couldn't talk 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.080 about Rosa or the boycott at work. The couple, who 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.800 had received threatening phone calls, death threats, and hate mail 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.720 during the boycott, continued to receive them for years after. 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.440 In nineteen fifty seven, after neither could find steady employment 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.560 in Montgomery, they joined Rose's brother and cousins in Detroit, 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.680 taking along her mother, Leona, But even in Detroit, Parks 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:25.000 had trouble finding work. Finally, in nineteen sixty five, she 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:28.440 was hired as an administrative assistant for Congressman John Conyers, Jr. 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.200 A position she held until her nine five retirement. Parks 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:34.280 died in two thousand five, and her body lay in 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.080 honor at the US Capital Rotunda, the first woman to 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:41.320 receive that distinction, but she remained an activist all her life. 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.640 In at the age of eighty one, she was mugged 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.160 by a young black man, a crime that many pundits 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.479 saw as a sign of decaying values and young people, 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.720 but Parks saw it differently. She said at the time, 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:54.919 I hope to some day see an end to the 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:57.360 conditions in our country that would make people want to 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:04.719 hurt others. M Today's episode was written by Melanie red 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:07.760 Zeke McManus and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.080 production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more on 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.040 this and lots of other topics, visit our home planet 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:14.640 has Stuff Works dot com, and for more podcasts from 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.680 my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:19.400 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.