Rosa Parks started the Civil rights movement. She was born on February 4th, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her parents were James and Leona McCauley. She grew up on a small farm with her brother, mother and grandparents. Parks was always afraid of hearing the Ku Klux Klan rides at night. Also, she was always afraid the house would burn down. The school she went to was for African-American children. It was a one-room schoolhouse open five months a year and only went up to the sixth grade. After she passed the sixth grade she was sent to Montgomery to finish her studies. She did that for five years and then had to help her grandfather and soon after that her grandmother. In 1932, Parks married Raymond Parks. The only way she could graduate from high school was with his support. They both worked for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She had many jobs. From the 1930's to 1955 she was a seamstress, in 1943 she was appointed secretary of the NAACP's Montgomery branch and later she ended up being its youth leader. She was also a receptionist and office assistant in 1965 to 1988 and part of that job helped the homeless people get homes. Those are just a few of her jobs that she had. Her husband ended up dying in 1977.
Rosa Parks was often called the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement." The one little thing that started the Civil Rights Movement was when Parks sat at the front of the bus. The reason she sat there was because she had a long day at work and was tired so she just sat more towards the front of the bus then she was supposed to. A white man asked her to get up and she simply wouldn't. After some arguing the bus driver got the police and Parks was arrested because she was black and she was sitting in the white section of the bus. Mr. E.D. Nixion heard about her being in jail for what she did and he bailed her out. He was also against discrimination of blacks.