Rosa Parks 2

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks
Jeanne Theoharis
5 of 321 pages
Biography

Quote from the book: “Held up as a national heroine but stripped of her lifelong history of activism and anger at American injustice, the Parks who emerged was a self-sacrificing mother figure for a nation who would use her death for a ritual of national redemption.” This is a great quote from this biography, and describes Rosa Park’s life very good.

What happened until now: The first part of the book is all about what happened after Rosa Parks died, how many people mourned for her and came to her funerals and memorials.  Her body was publicly displayed many times; in Montgomery, Washington D.C. and Detroit and there were many private memorials too. At the end, her coffin was put in the Capitol Rotunda. Parks was the first woman and second African American to be granted this honor.

Answers to the Questions:

1. The “great human path” is the path we take, or the things we do that make us great or also not-so-great. It’s the actions and decisions that make us who we are at the end of our lives. Rosa Park’s “great human path” is a good one to describe. She was born in Tuskegee as a normal African American, and had to deal with discrimination and all the “normal” problems. On a cold December day, her life changed when she boycotted in a bus and refused to get up for a white man. After that, she dedicated her life to equal and civil rights, and fought for her freedom; giving speeches, participated in marches and did many more things. She only stopped when she died after nearly 40 years of fighting (she was 92 years old), and even after that she inspired many other people and is called the “mother of civil rights movement”.

2. Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama as Rosa Louise McCauley. Her parents were James McCauley, who was a carpenter, and Leona Edwards, who was employed as a teacher. She was sick during most of her early years, which resulted in her being a quiet, small child. Her parents eventually separated, and Rosa and her brother went to live with their mother on their grandparent’s farm in Pine Level, a town close to Montgomery, Alabama. She developed strong roots in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and didn’t attend a public school until she was eleven years old.

3. Since she was sick a lot, she was a small child, and later a small grown up and it also made her really quiet. By nearly everyone who knew her, she was described as quiet and very calm. Her going to church a lot made her religious, which influenced her view on discrimination and civil rights a lot.

This picture is important because the part of the book I already read was all about how she was honored after her death and how she was granted the honor of having her coffin presented in the capitol rotunda. This picture only shows a small part, but there were a few thousand people attending all her ceremonies and memorials.