“Maybe the habit of protecting my little brother helped me learn to protect myself. I was tired of letting those white people push us blacks around” stated Rosa Parks. From the back of the bus to the front of America’s focus, the courageous action of Rosa Parks changed America’s segregation laws forever. Rosa grew up disliking the treatment of African- Americans. On December 1, 1955 she tried to put a stop to it and as a result she became a famous civil rights hero.
Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. She lived on a small farm with her grandparents, mother, father and, younger brother Sylvester. Rosa Parks and her brother went to an all black school through elementary, but as they grew there were no more black schools left unless you would pay for private school. Rosa Parks had a lot of devotion for studies and her mother knew so, she paid for Rosa’s schooling. In the south, blacks and whites didn’t socialize. They were separated by law, almost everything had labels of “white only” or “Colored”. [Donovan 9-11] “What I learned best at Miss White’s school was that I was a person with dignity and self-respect, I should not set my sights lower than anyone else just because I was black.” Rosa Parks said. She didn’t have a very good sense of what was fair. Her attitude got her into trouble sometimes, because she fought back for herself. Once she ran into a white boy on the street and he threatened to hit her, as he was folding a fist she picked up a brick and dared him to hit her, after he ran away for his own good. [Haskins 22] Blacks were not allowed to retaliate, if whites did something to you. Rosa Parks always got upset, for she felt that she had rights to defend herself when possible. In the south African-American’s could be beaten or killed for using the kind of attitude she had. Her grandparents always berated her for her high-strung confidence; they were just trying to protect her from the white people lynching her. [Haskins 23]...