Rosa Parks

Every entry, with its source

At 0

1. Feb 4, 1913

   Born in Tuskegee, Alabama

   Her parents separated when she was small and she grew up on her grandparents' farm.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 15

1. c. 1928

   Left school at 15 to care for her sick grandmother

   She was attending a laboratory school in Montgomery.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 19

1. Dec 18, 1932

   Married Raymond Parks, a barber and NAACP member

   He encouraged her to finish school. She was 19.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 20

1. c. 1933

   Earned her high school diploma at 20

   Fewer than 7 percent of Black Alabamians had one at the time.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 30

1. Dec 1943

   Elected secretary of the Montgomery NAACP at 30

   She said she was the only woman there and too timid to say no. She held the job until 1957.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 32

1. c. 1945

   Registered to vote on her third attempt

   She had been failed on the literacy test twice.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 42

1. c. 1955

   Attended a desegregation workshop at Highlander Folk School

   Two weeks in Tennessee at 42, her first experience of an integrated setting.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org
2. Dec 1, 1955

   Refused to give up her bus seat and was arrested, at 42

   She had finished a day's work as a department store seamstress. She later said she was tired of giving in, not physically tired.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org
3. Dec 5, 1955

   Convicted and fined; the bus boycott began that day

   A 26-year-old pastor named Martin Luther King Jr. was chosen to lead it.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 43

1. Dec 20, 1956

   Boycott over after 381 days: the buses were desegregated

   The Supreme Court had ruled bus segregation unconstitutional.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 44

1. Aug 1957

   Left Alabama for Detroit at 44

   She and her husband had both lost their jobs and received death threats.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 52

1. c. 1965

   Hired by Congressman John Conyers, at 52

   She ran his Detroit office as secretary and receptionist until retiring in 1988.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 74

1. c. 1987

   Co-founded an institute for young people at 74

   The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development, in memory of her husband.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 83

1. Sep 9, 1996

   Presidential Medal of Freedom at 83

   Congress added its Gold Medal in 1999.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 92

1. Oct 24, 2005

   Died in Detroit at 92

   She became the first woman to lie in honour in the US Capitol Rotunda.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org