Yet, she said, “God is everything to me.”Īll her life, Parks remained a devoted member of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, founded in 1816 in Philadelphia by a formerly enslaved person, Bishop Richard Allen. Rosa Parks was aware that southern whites had historically believed that enslaved black people had no souls, making persecuting them more acceptable. How Did Rosa Parks’ Faith Inform Her Activism? As a fiercely determined woman who projected a dignity that even racist media outlets couldn’t deny, Rosa Parks was the perfect public candidate for standing up for equal rights for African Americans. She had been involved in the local Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) organization for about 10 years before the bus incident, acting as organization secretary since 1943. This travesty of justice most likely inspired her to protest giving up her seat to a white man. Her civil manners encouraged city authorities to treat her with some degree of respect when she was arrested.įour days before refusing to give up her city bus seat, as one of the leaders of the youth division of the Montgomery NAACP, Parks had learned that 14-year-old Emmett Till’s murderers had been acquitted. The “white” seats on a city bus were full when a white man entered the bus, and the bus driver asked Parks to give up her seat in the first row of the “colored” seats section at the back of the bus.

She was 42 years old when she sat down for justice on December 1, 1955, when she was 42 years old-her feet and back most likely aching after a long day of seamstress work.

There are advantages to behaving and looking like “a proper, middle-aged woman.” Rosa McCauley Parks was immaculately groomed with refined manners and quiet courtesy when she was arrested and jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

Rosa at parks