I dedicate this children's book to Rosa Parks. She was very respected, but not at first, she had to work for what she believed in, even if that meant going to jail. She changed how African Americans got to live their lives. I believe more people should take after her and pursue what that they think is right.

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Nearly four decades after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rosa Parks Niece, Shirley McCauley asked to know all about her Aunt. Her father started from the beginning, when they were children. Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4th, 1913. At age 2 she moved with our parents James and Leona McCarthy to Pine Level, Alabama, to live with our grandparents. I however was born in 1915 shortly after. Then our parents separated. Our mom was a teacher, and the family valued education. Rosa moved to Montgomery, Alabama when she was 11 and eventually attended a high school there, a Laboratory school at the Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes. Our grandmother became very sick so Rosa had to leave at the age of 16 to care for her. She soon had to care for our mother who was becoming ill as well. At age 19 she married your uncle, Raymond Parks. Raymond was a self educated man who worked as a barber. He also was a long time member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored people (NAACP). He supported Rosa in getting her high school diploma, which she did receive a year later.

Shirley was fascinated by all of this information but a bit overwhelmed. Her father noticed she couldn’t really keep up with the loads of facts he was throwing at her so he decided to try and figure out an easier way for her to comprehend it, but still learn everything she's wanting to know. He mentioned a few little stories about Rosa, that lead to the woman she would become.

He began, During your aunt and I’s childhoods, we were not the tallest kids. So we weren’t always really accepted, for that reason and the fact that we weren’t white. Growing up Rosa was especially short, even shorter than I was, and I’m younger. Not only was she small for her age, but she also got sick a lot, because we couldn’t pay for the doctors. But that didn’t mean she was weak. Rosa and I were taught to stand up for ourselves and to be strong and confident, because things around us were so negative just because of our skin color. She always was a tough girl who stood up for what she believed in.”

Shirley seemed to be understanding the segregation in the sense of what it was but not why it was happening.

“Why judge a perfect innocent human being just off their skin color..Something they can not control. Everyone is the same on the inside and should be treated the same” she said.

That's when I realized that she was just like my sister. Strong and determined. I continued on telling her about Rosa, but when she was a little older. Raymond and Rosa were seamstress, and became respected members of Montgomery’s large African American community.

I decided to break down kind of what it was like to be African American at this time. Before there were really no need to separate blacks and whites, because 95% of blacks were slaves, but since slavery was abolished.. white people still thought they were the ultimate race. They separated; schools, theatres, taverns, and many other public places. Shirley thought this was absolutely insane. She insisted “Wouldn’t it be just even more work to go through all this trouble to basically make two of everything but one is nice and the other isn’t, just to avoid being with colored people?”

He said one time when she was 11, she was walking home from school and this boy on rollerskates came flying by her. He pushed her to the ground, and being the independent girl she was, she decided to stand up for herself. She knew fighting was wrong but she had to, so she pushed him to the ground. The boy's mother saw Rosa push her little boy and got very angry. What really made the woman mad was the fact that they were white and Rosa was black. When the lady was yelling at Rosa, she became upset, but wasn’t going to just sit through it. She stood up for herself and they never messed with her again. Shirley didn’t understand why a random woman would just yell at a little girl, but her father said it was mainly because she was colored. Still confused her father decided to tell another short story.

I told her I knew it was confusing, to this day people still don’t understand why things happened the way they did, or who decided “I don’t want to drink out of the same water fountain a black person does, because they are inferior to me.” These are the exact things colored skins thought back then. But only some were brave enough to face the people.

One day Rosa decided she had had enough and she was going to stand up for herself. She had quite a long day and was just ready to go home. She got on the bus and went to the back of course because that's where the colored skinned people had to sit. The bus was filling up quickly and so they ran out of seats for the white people. The bus driver told Rosa to give up her seat for a white man. When she refused that's when an abrupt situation occurred. She stood up for what she believed in, if the colored section was full she could never ask a white man for his seat, so why should she give up hers? Her standing up for herself caused a big ordeal. This happened on December 1st, 1955, when Rosa was 45 years of age. However she was not the only one asked to move/get off the bus. Three others besides her were given the same order, but they followed directions as told. My sister told me that most people thought she didn’t want to give up her seat because she was physically tired, but she said, “I was tired, tired of giving in.”

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"Rosa Parks And the Bus to Freedom"

SavannahMcCarn

This story is a detailed account of Rosa Parks' life, told from the perspective of her niece, Shirley. It covers Rosa's early life, her act of defiance on the bus, and the subsequent Montgomery Bus Boycott.

(17 pages)

Privacy level: PUBLIC

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