Women Who Changed The World: Rosa Parks Essay, Research Paper

Women Who Changed the World: Rosa Parks

There were many women who have changed the world in the fields of math,

science, sports, music, writing and leadership. Rosa Parks was a leader to help

the blacks become equal to whites. Eleanor Roosevelt was also a leader because

she helped the poor. Harriet Tubman was also a leader which helped free black

slaves.

I am going to tell what Rosa Parks did to help the world be a better

place. Parks, Rosa Louise (1913- ), civil rights leader, born in Tuskegee,

Alabama. She attended Alabama State College, worked as a seamstress and

housekeeper, and was active in the Montgomery Voters League and the NAACP

(National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Youth Council. In

1943 she was elected secretary of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP. In a

celebrated incident in 1955 she was arrested for violating segregation laws when

she refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. This resulted in a

boycott of the bus system by blacks, with Martin Luther King, Jr. leading the

movement. In spite of harassment the boycott continued, and in 1956 segregated

seating was challenged in a federal lawsuit. Within a few months bus segregation

was ruled unconstitutional, and the buses were officially desegregated in

December 1956. Parks, who had lost her job because of the boycott, moved to

Detroit, Michigan, the following year, and again took in sewing. She also worked

as a fundraiser for the NAACP. In 1965 she was hired by Congressman John Conyers,

Jr., also a civil rights leader, to manage his Detroit office. She remained

active in the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In

1987 she founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development,

offering guidance to young blacks. She won the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal (1970) and

the Martin Luther King Jr. Award (1980), as well as an honorary degree from Shaw

College.

I think that without Rosa Parks or any other men or women who tried to

stop the racism against blacks has helped our nation in a big way. Without

these people our world would be prejudice and racist.