Rosa Parks

This post is written by Eve Freeman, who is 8 years old, making her our youngest Shero contributor yet! She was inspired when she found out about Rosa Parks and has written a short piece about what she discovered.

If you know a Young Shero (or hero) that would like to write for the Sheroes of History blog, please get in touch!

Rosa Parks was a black woman who fought for the rights of African-Americans. Her full-name was Rosa Louise McCauley and she was born in Alabama in the United States of America on February 4, 1913.

In that time, black and white people were forced by the government to do everything separately, for example, they had different schools, different churches, and even different drinking fountains.

Rosa Parks was a very brave woman. Firstly, when a special train came into town (The Freedom Train), Rosa led some black students onto the train and stood in the line with the white people even though the people in the town didn’t like it.

Secondly, on her way home from a hard day’s work, she got on the bus and, just as she was sitting down, a white person came through the door. The bus driver said, all the black people need to stand up to let the white person sit down, but Rosa refused. The bus driver said to Rosa that he would call the police if she didn’t stand up. Soon, the police came and arrested Rosa. After this, African-American people avoided the buses for over a year.

Martin Luther King was one of the people who was inspired by Rosa Parks. Eventually, the government changed their mind and said it was wrong to separate black people and white people. I think what Rosa did was particularly amazing because some people would not think that a woman could stand-up and be brave and strong.

By Eve Freeman

 

Find out more…

Rosa wrote a book about her part in the Civil Rights movement, which you could read if you want to find out more about what it was like for her. You can find it here.

There is a fascinating interview with Rosa Parks that you can read here.

There are lots of videos  all about Rosa’s life that you can watch on the internet. Here is one with an interview with Rosa herself:

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