Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Boglebaum here. Most of us know Rosa Parks as
Speaker 1: the African American woman who quietly but firmly refused to
Speaker 1: give up her bus seat to a white person on
Speaker 1: December one, n in Montgomery, Alabama. That small act of
Speaker 1: resistance sparked the year long Montgomery Bus Boycott, which in
Speaker 1: turn kickstarted national efforts to end racial segregation in the
Speaker 1: United States. In honor of that, we wanted to fill
Speaker 1: in some of the often misunderstood circumstances surrounding parks resistance.
Speaker 1: To start with. This wasn't some totally random act. Parks
Speaker 1: was a lifelong activist, and she came from a family
Speaker 1: of activists. Parks was born in nineteen thirteen to James
Speaker 1: and Leona mcaulay. The couple separated two years later, and
Speaker 1: Parks's mother moved the family to her parents farm in
Speaker 1: Pine Level, Alabama. Park's grandparents, Rose and Sylvester Edwards, were
Speaker 1: former slaves who strongly believed in racial equality. One of
Speaker 1: parks early memories was of her grandfather's standing guard with
Speaker 1: his shotgun as the Ku Klux Klan marched down their street.
Speaker 1: And of him telling her stories about black history and
Speaker 1: courageous figures like Crisps Attics, Harriett Tebman, and Marcus Garvey.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty two, when she was nineteen, Rosa McCauley
Speaker 1: married Raymond Parks, an active member of the National Association
Speaker 1: for the Advancement of Colored People or n double A CP,
Speaker 1: Parks began her civil rights activism shortly after graduating from
Speaker 1: high school and continued until shortly before her death in
Speaker 1: two thousand five at age ninety two. She served for
Speaker 1: years as secretary to the president of n w A
Speaker 1: CPS Montgomery Chapter. Parks also worked on issues such as
Speaker 1: voter registration, desegregation of schools and public spaces, and justice
Speaker 1: for black victims of white brutality. In addition, she participated
Speaker 1: in numerous major civil rights events, such as the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three March on Washington and the nineteen sixty five
Speaker 1: Selma to Montgomery March. Parks was also an activist for
Speaker 1: women's rights and ending the Vietnam War. At one time,
Speaker 1: she served on the board of Planned Parenthood. When she
Speaker 1: made her famous stand, it wasn't her first interaction with
Speaker 1: the bus driver. The driver James E. Blake often made
Speaker 1: derogatory marks to African Americans, especially women. He also made
Speaker 1: black people get off his bus after paying, then reboard
Speaker 1: in the rear, and sometimes he'd drive away before they
Speaker 1: got back. On twelve years before the boycott in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty three, Blake tried to make Parks reboard after paying.
Speaker 1: She refused, and he tried to push her off the bus.
Speaker 1: After that, Parks avoided Blake's bus no matter what, But
Speaker 1: on that faithful day she didn't notice Blake was the
Speaker 1: driver when she stepped on board. Her family reports that
Speaker 1: Parks was distracted thinking about Emmett till as news had
Speaker 1: just come out that his lynchers were going to go free.
Speaker 1: But about that famous stand. In telling the story, sometimes
Speaker 1: it's mistakenly said that she sat in the whites only section.
Speaker 1: What really happened was this. In Montgomery's buses had thirty
Speaker 1: six seats. The first ten were reserved for white people,
Speaker 1: the middle sixteen were first come, first served, with priority
Speaker 1: given to white people, and the last ten were for
Speaker 1: black people. Parks sat down in the first row of
Speaker 1: the middle section, next to a black man two black
Speaker 1: women's out across the aisle. The other black people got
Speaker 1: up when Blake told them to. Parks, as we know,
Speaker 1: did not, and she didn't refuse to give up her
Speaker 1: best seat because her feet hurt. She wrote in her autobiography,
Speaker 1: I was not tired physically, or no more tired than
Speaker 1: I usually was at the end of a working day.
Speaker 1: I was not old, although some people have an image
Speaker 1: of me as being old then I was forty two. No,
Speaker 1: the only tired I was was tired of giving in.
Speaker 1: Several months before Parks refused to give up her seat,
Speaker 1: fifteen year old Claudette Colvin did the same thing, but
Speaker 1: unlike Parks, Colvin made a scene and was physically removed
Speaker 1: by police officers. Some say parks refusal ignited the boycott
Speaker 1: and not Colvin's because Parks was calm, polite, and slightly older,
Speaker 1: which made her more s at figure, and Parkes was
Speaker 1: well known and liked in the community through her work
Speaker 1: with the n double a c P. However, it was Colvin,
Speaker 1: not Parks, who was part of the lawsuit changing the
Speaker 1: constitutionality of bus segregation in Montgomery. You may have seen
Speaker 1: photos of Parks mug shot or being fingerprinted, but those
Speaker 1: are not from that first famous arrest there from two
Speaker 1: months later, with the Montgomery bus boycott going strong, when
Speaker 1: Parks was helping arrange carpool rides to people who refused
Speaker 1: to ride the buses, on February twenty ninety six, a
Speaker 1: grand jury indicted Parks and others for violating in Alabama
Speaker 1: law prohibiting organized boycotts. Once again, Parks was arrested and jailed.
Speaker 1: The Montgomery bus boycott lasted one days and ended when
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said segregation on public transportation was unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: Although the boycott was a success, it threw Rosa and
Speaker 1: Raymond parks life into turmoil. Montgomery Fair Department store, where
Speaker 1: Parks worked as a seamstress, fired her. Raymond was also
Speaker 1: fired his job after his boss said he couldn't talk
Speaker 1: about Rosa or the boycott at work. The couple, who
Speaker 1: had received threatening phone calls, death threats, and hate mail
Speaker 1: during the boycott, continued to receive them for years after.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty seven, after neither could find steady employment
Speaker 1: in Montgomery, they joined Rose's brother and cousins in Detroit,
Speaker 1: taking along her mother, Leona, But even in Detroit, Parks
Speaker 1: had trouble finding work. Finally, in nineteen sixty five, she
Speaker 1: was hired as an administrative assistant for Congressman John Conyers, Jr.
Speaker 1: A position she held until her nine five retirement. Parks
Speaker 1: died in two thousand five, and her body lay in
Speaker 1: honor at the US Capital Rotunda, the first woman to
Speaker 1: receive that distinction, but she remained an activist all her life.
Speaker 1: In at the age of eighty one, she was mugged
Speaker 1: by a young black man, a crime that many pundits
Speaker 1: saw as a sign of decaying values and young people,
Speaker 1: but Parks saw it differently. She said at the time,
Speaker 1: I hope to some day see an end to the
Speaker 1: conditions in our country that would make people want to
Speaker 1: hurt others. M Today's episode was written by Melanie red
Speaker 1: Zeke McManus and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more on
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