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People say that Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat to a white man on a segregated Montgomery, Alabama, bus in 1955 because she was "tired." This book explains what that "tiredness" really was: a fierce "tiredness" of segregation!
Rosa is called the "mother of Civil Rights" for that action in Montgomery, but her activism began long before.
Her grandfather was a black Alabaman who would sit up all night with a shotgun in his lap to ward off the KKK. Forced from high school by family illness, at age 19 Rosa married black civil rights organizer Raymond Parks, then went back to school and got her diploma.
This book emphasizes Rosa's childhood, her role in the dangerous fight to free the Scottsboro Boys (nine young black men falsely sentenced to death for the rape of two white women in 1931), and Rosa's inspiring actions in Montgomery. The bus boycott began the end of segregated transit in the South and marked the emergence of Martin Luther King.
After the boycott, Rosa and Raymond moved to Michigan to continue their work. At the end of the 20th century, Rosa Parks still traveled the country inspiring a younger generation.
Guided Reading Level: L
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