After marrying in 1932, she earned her high school degree in 1933 with her husband's support. Instead, she got a job at a shirt factory in Montgomery. In 1929, while in the 11th grade and attending a laboratory school for secondary education led by the Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes, Parks left school to attend to both her sick grandmother and mother back in Pine Level. African American students were forced to walk to the first through sixth-grade schoolhouse, while the city of Pine Level provided bus transportation as well as a new school building for white students.īeginning at age 11, Parks attended the city's Industrial School for Girls in Montgomery. Taught to read by her mother at a young age, Parks attended a segregated, one-room school in Pine Level, Alabama, that often lacked adequate school supplies such as desks. Throughout Parks' education, she attended segregated schools. READ MORE: 16 Rosa Parks Quotes About Civil Rights Education In one experience, Parks' grandfather stood in front of their house with a shotgun while Ku Klux Klan members marched down the street. Parks' childhood brought her early experiences with racial discrimination and activism for racial equality. Both of Parks' grandparents were formerly enslaved people and strong advocates for racial equality the family lived on the Edwards' farm, where Parks would spend her youth. Parks’ mother moved the family to Pine Level, Alabama, to live with her parents, Rose and Sylvester Edwards. Her parents, James and Leona McCauley, separated when Parks was two.

Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Award by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Parks was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr.

Her bravery led to nationwide efforts to end racial segregation. Rosa Parks was a civil rights leader whose refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Parks bus