1. What was life like for African Americans in the South when Rosa Parks was a child?
Life was extremely harsh for the African Americans when Rosa Parks was a child; everything was based on segregation. Blacks and Whites used different water fountains and bathrooms, and had to use different stores and restaurants for recreation.
Seats in the city buses were even segregated. Whites were able to sit in the clean sits, located in the front of the bus, and Blacks had to sit in the back of the bus, where it was hot and dirty. If more Whites came onto the bus, and there were no reserved White seats left, then Blacks had to give up their seats for the Whites.
Blacks also had to live in constant fear of people all over town. The police were constantly performing brutal acts upon African Americans, and bus drivers also gave them their fair share of hatred. Judges in courts and the notorious Ku Klux Klan were also huge threats to the Blacks' well being.
2. How was Mrs. Parks 'raised a little different'?
Rosa Parks was taught to take care of children as a child herself, and had many chores on her farm. She was also taught to never let anybody tell her that she can't do something, just because she is black.
3. What happened when Mrs. Parks first encountered bus driver James Blake in 1943? ---What did she do when he told her to get off the bus and re-enter through the side door? ---How do you think this episode influenced her actions more than a decade later?
Rosa Parks entered the bus through the front door, and then walked to the back, to the colored section. The bus driver, James Blake, immediately rushed at her and told her that she must go back outside and enter the bus through the back door. The now rebellious Rosa Parks refused to do so. But finally, with Blake's threat of calling the police, Mrs. Parks went outside to enter through the back. But, more than a decade later, she would not let the Whites suppress her again.
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