Rosa Parks and Nonviolence

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Rosa Parks holds a special place in history as a courageous African-American woman. Her efforts, along with many others’, helped to end the ongoing suffering causes by segregation and discrimination. She lived quite a simple life in her early years, which may have led to the popular image of her as being a passive and meek individual. Contrary to this belief, Rosa Parks was never the type to sit back and put up with discrimination. From an early age, whenever she was faced with a racist comment or threat she made an effort to confront it. For example, when called a nigger by a little white boy, young Rosa, responded by saying, “if you come over here, we’ll give you a good beating”. She also held meetings in her home where the civil rights activists were heavily armed. In this essay, I will use evidence from her autobiography Rosa Parks: My Story to argue that she wasn’t the passive and submissive person history often makes her out to be but rather an active leader in the fight for equality who believed in using any means to get it. Growing Up Black Rosa Parks lived in Pine Level, Alabama very early in her life but later moved to Montgomery, Alabama to live with her maternal grandparents. From an early age she knew inequality wasn’t fair and protested against any ill treatment ever since she was young. She says that it was mostly from her grandfather she learned not to, “put up with bad treatment from anybody. It was passed down almost in our genes”. Her grandfather was half white and half black. After the death of his parents, he was mistreated by an overseer of his father’s plantations which caused him to grow a strong resentment towards white people and that attitude was passed down the generation. Parks mentions how Pine Level was too small to have mass segregation like the ones in cities with separate water fountains and segregated buses.

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