Rosa Parks Academy of Achievement. The Road to Civil Rights i. Rosa Parks, the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement was one of the most important citizens of the 20th century. Mrs. Parks was a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama. Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, meaning there is no reasonable higher. Components Balanced Literacy Program Powerpoint' title='Components Balanced Literacy Program Powerpoint' />Book takes readers on a journey through one of the most significant periods in Americas history. Travel through the timeline and listen to members of the American Academy of Achievement as they discuss the key events that shaped the future of the country. What It Takes is an audio podcast on i. Tunes produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor music, science and exploration, sports, film, technology, literature, the military and social justice. Two policemen came on the bus, and one asked me if the driver had told me to standHe wanted to know why I didnt stand, and I told him I didnt think I should have to stand up. I asked him, why did they push us around He said, I dont know, but the law is the law and you are under arrest. Most historians date the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the United States to December 1, 1. That was the day when an unknown seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. This brave woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested and fined for violating a city ordinance, but her lonely act of defiance began a movement that ended legal segregation in America, and made her an inspiration to freedom loving people everywhere. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama during the 1. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a seminal event in the Civil Rights Movement and was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. National ArchivesRosa Parks was born Rosa Louise Mc. Cauley in Tuskegee, Alabama to James Mc. Cauley, a carpenter, and Leona Mc. Cauley, a teacher. At the age of two she moved to her grandparents farm in Pine Level, Alabama with her mother and younger brother, Sylvester. At the age of 1. 1 she enrolled in the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private school founded by liberal minded women from the northern United States. The schools philosophy of self worth was consistent with Leona Mc. Cauleys advice to take advantage of the opportunities, no matter how few they were. Opportunities were few indeed. Back then, Mrs. Parks recalled in an interview, we didnt have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next. I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down. In the same interview, she cited her lifelong acquaintance with fear as the reason for her relative fearlessness in deciding to appeal her conviction during the bus boycott. I didnt have any special fear, she said. It was more of a relief to know that I wasnt alone. Rosa Parks booking photo following her February 1. Montgomery Bus Boycott. She refused to yield her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus. Project Igi 1 Game Torrent on this page. She was arrested and fined. The boycott of public buses by blacks, began on the day of Parkss court hearing and lasted 3. Alabama Department of ArchivesAfter attending Alabama State Teachers College, the young Rosa settled in Montgomery, with her husband, Raymond Parks. The couple joined the local chapter of the NAACP and worked quietly for many years to improve the lot of African Americans in the segregated South. I worked on numerous cases with the NAACP, Mrs. Parks recalled, but we did not get the publicity. There were cases of flogging, peonage, murder, and rape. We didnt seem to have too many successes. It was more a matter of trying to challenge the powers that be, and to let it be known that we did not wish to continue being second class citizens. The bus incident led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by the young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The association called for a boycott of the city owned bus company. The boycott lasted 3. Mrs. Parks, Dr. King, and their cause to the attention of the world. A Supreme Court decision struck down the Montgomery ordinance under which Mrs. Parks had been fined, and outlawed racial segregation on public transportation. Rosa Parks speaks with an interviewer as she arrives at court with Reverend Edward Nixon and 9. African Americans on trial for violation of a 1. They were part of a city wide boycott of buses by African Americans ignited by Rosa Parks arrest for violation of the Jim Crow law forbidding African Americans from sitting with whites at the front of buses. Marco Aurelio Thompson. In June of 1. 95. U. S. District Court panel ruled that segregation on Alabamas intrastate buses was unconstitutional, citing Brown v. Board of Education as precedent for the verdict. In November, the U. S. Supreme Court affirmed the District Courts decision. On December 1. 7, 1. United States Supreme Court rejected city and state appeals to reconsider their decision, and soon thereafter the order for integrated buses arrived in Montgomery. Three days later, the Montgomery Bus Boycott ended. In 1. 95. 7, Mrs. Parks and her husband moved to Detroit, Michigan, where Mrs. Parks served on the staff of U. S. Representative John Conyers. The Southern Christian Leadership Council established an annual Rosa Parks Freedom Award in her honor. After the death of her husband in 1. Mrs. Parks founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. The Institute sponsors an annual summer program for teenagers called Pathways to Freedom. The young people tour the country in buses, under adult supervision, learning the history of their country and of the civil rights movement. President Clinton presented Rosa Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1. She received a Congressional Gold Medal in 1. June 1. 5, 1. 99. Rosa Parks when she was presented with a Congressional Gold Medal by President Bill Clinton. When asked if she was happy living in retirement, Rosa Parks replied, I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I dont think there is any such thing as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say youre happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I havent reached that stage yet. Mrs. Parks spent her last years living quietly in Detroit, where she died in 2. After her death, her casket was placed in the rotunda of the United States Capitol for two days, so the nation could pay its respects to the woman whose courage had changed the lives of so many. She is the only woman and second African American in American history to lie in state at the Capitol, an honor usually reserved for Presidents of the United States. View and listen to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I Have a Dream speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C., August 2. 8, 1. Member of the American Academy of Achievement, poet and best selling author, Maya Angelou shares her interpretation of Dr. Martin Luther Kings I Have a Dream speech. Inducted in 1. 99. Rosa Parks, the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement was one of the most important citizens of the 2. Mrs. Parks was a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama when, in December of 1. The bus driver had her arrested. She was tried and convicted of violating a local ordinance. Her act sparked a citywide boycott of the bus system by blacks that lasted more than a year.