Living in a World of Segregation

▲ Rosa Parks launched the first major protest of the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King, Jr., (seen in the background) became one of the most important leaders of the movement she inspired.

When Rosa Parks told the bus driver that she would not give her seat to a white passenger in 1955, she lit the spark that became the Civil Rights Movements. That one momentous action defined her life, and it didn’t come out of nowhere. Her involvement in civil rights had a long history and it went back generations.

When Rosa’s grandparents were born, there was still slavery in 15 states in the southern U.S. Her grandfather was born a slave on a plantation in Alabama. As a boy, he picked cotton all day in the hot sun, and he was often badly beaten by white overseers. As a slave, her grandfather had no one he could complain to or call for help. But after the Civil War and the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery was abolished. Her grandfather and everyone who had been forced to live as a slave was free. The U.S. Congress passed amendments to the Constitution—giving blacks full citizenship rights and the right to vote.

After slavery was ended, it looked like things would get better. But after a few years, southern states and towns began passing “Jim Crow” laws that were designed to limit black people’s rights. Black people faced bigotry, racism, and prejudice.

Some forms of bigotry were scary and violent. The Ku Klux Klan was a terrorist organization that would threaten, intimidate, and sometimes attack and kill black people. Members of the Klan wore white hoods that hid their faces and spewed hatred of blacks, Jews, Catholics, and immigrants. They didn’t want blacks to be allowed to vote, have good jobs, or be treated with respect. When Rosa Parks was six years old in 1919 and living in Pine Level, Alabama, the Klan paraded by her house in the middle of the night. For days, her grandfather sat up all night with a double barreled shotgun to protect the family if necessary. Those nights, Rosa and her brother were told to sleep with their clothes on, so they could run away if they had to. But Rosa didn’t want to run. Even at six years old, she believed she was ready to fight.

▲ The Ku Klux Klan was a hate group that terrorized black people. Its members wore hoods to conceal their identities. 

Under Jim Crow, many unjust laws were passed that limited the rights of black people. Segregation laws were passed in many southern states. It was illegal for blacks and whites to marry each other. They weren’t allowed to eat in the same restaurants, drink out of the same water fountains, or use the same bathrooms. They had to sit in separate sections of movie theaters and streetcars. The facilities weren’t just separate. They were almost always unequal, with black people having to go into buildings through a back alley or use a bathroom that wasn’t kept clean

In states where segregation laws were passed, blacks and whites sat in separate sections on public transportation.

What did segregation mean for Rosa Parks when she was growing up? As part of segregation, blacks and whites had to go to different schools. A brand-new school for white kids was built near Rosa’s house in Pine Level, but she was not allowed to go there. The town paid for a bus that took the white kids to school, while the black kids had to walk. When the school bus drove by, the white kids threw trash out the window at Rosa and her friends.

Despite all of this bigotry, Rosa was not a bigot herself. She did not hate white people. As she grew up, she had some white friends and white teachers, and they would all treat each other like regular people. But these flashes of racial harmony did not change the segregation laws or the oppressive atmosphere.