Mrs. Rosa Louise (McCauley) Parks, born 1913, Tuskegee, AL
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Mrs. Rosa Louise (McCauley) Parks, born 1913, Tuskegee, AL
| Jean Rice (View posts) | Posted: 1 May 2001 12:00PM GMT |
Classification: Biography
Surnames: McCauley, Parks, Edwards, Washington, Percival, Wright
Rosa Parks deserves to be remembered as the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement," although she was by no means the first of her race and/or gender to challenge racial-segregation laws.
Rosa McCauley, named after her maternal grandmother, Rose, was born on an unseasonably warm day, February 4, 1913 somewhere in Tuskegee (Macon Co.) AL. While the exact location of her birthplace is not know, a faded photograph reveals a plywood shanty fronted by six wobbly steps leading up to a porch seemingly on the verge of collapse with a shattered front picture window and a severely-splintered picket fence; mysteriously, a large star in the style of the "distelfinks" Amish farmers hang on their barns in Pennysylvania's Dutch country is seen carved into the roof's rough wood.
Rosa's father, James McCauley, hailed from Abbeville (Henry Co.) AL, and was a skilled carpenter and stonemason. Her mother, Leona Edwards, was a schoolteacher from Pine Level (Montgomery Co.) AL. The two 24-year-olds were married In Pine Level's Mount Zion AME Church by a close relative to Edwards on April 12, 1912, the same day the "Titanic" left on its ill-fated transatlantic voyage.
When Rosa was born in Tuskegee to the "roving" McCauleys, the population was 3,000, described by Booker T. Washington in 1881 as "a town such as one rarely sees in the South, its quiet shady streets and taseteful and rich dwellings remind me of a New England village." Rosa's mother was very much impressed by Booker T. Washington and embraced his notion that high moral character and absolute cleanliness were "civilizing agents" that would help blacks excel in America. Along with the Bible, Washington's 1901 autobiography, "Up from Slavery," was a fixture in the McCauley house. Leona Edwards McCauley, determined on betterment for her baby, harbored a bold hope that just being in Tuskegee, considered the best place in Alabama for African-Americans to educate themselves, would rub off on her daughter.
It is recalled, however, that the African-American condition in the South when Rosa was born was such that while a man could be punished for beating a horse or killing birds, it was next to impossible to prevent a mob from torturing, or lynching and burning a human being.
Rosa McCauley's parents found little joy in their dirt-road poverty and the strains it put on their marriage. At one point, James' brother, Robert, came to live with them. The family left Tuskagee when Rosa was only two years old. Later on they lived for a time with James McCauley's parents and large extended family, four children sharing a bedroom with a dirt floor in Abbeville, but when Rosa was still small Leona left Abbeville and moved back in with her own family in Pine Level. After that, Rosa's father virtually disappeared from his daughter's life, when saw him when she was five and not again until she was an adult and married.
Early on Rosa learned she was not a full Negro but of mixed blood, a mulatto; in fact, several of her family members were often mistaken for white. Her younger brother, Sylvester, was light-skinned and looked Asian, and her grandfather Edwards was very light-complected with straight hair. On of her maternal great-grandfathers, James Percival, an indentured servant of Pine Level's Wright family, was a white Scottish-Irishman who had emigrated to Charleston, SC.
Although nonfarming, like many Alabama families the McCauleys fell victim to a plague of weevils that devastated the state's cotton plantions and ending its prosperity. Health care for African-Americans was virtually nonexistant.
As a shy, mild-mannered, frail little girl who was often ill with chronic tonsillitis, Rose was guided through her life by a deep Christian faith and love and respect for all humanity, and history was made on December 1, 1955, when Rose, then a weary, prim, bespectacled, 42-year-old mulatto seamstress, refused to give up her seat on the Cleveland Avenue bus in Montgomery to a white man. This most courageous act is now considered the beginning of the American civil rights movement.
-- Excerpts, "Rosa Parks," (2000), Douglas Brinkley
Rosa McCauley, named after her maternal grandmother, Rose, was born on an unseasonably warm day, February 4, 1913 somewhere in Tuskegee (Macon Co.) AL. While the exact location of her birthplace is not know, a faded photograph reveals a plywood shanty fronted by six wobbly steps leading up to a porch seemingly on the verge of collapse with a shattered front picture window and a severely-splintered picket fence; mysteriously, a large star in the style of the "distelfinks" Amish farmers hang on their barns in Pennysylvania's Dutch country is seen carved into the roof's rough wood.
Rosa's father, James McCauley, hailed from Abbeville (Henry Co.) AL, and was a skilled carpenter and stonemason. Her mother, Leona Edwards, was a schoolteacher from Pine Level (Montgomery Co.) AL. The two 24-year-olds were married In Pine Level's Mount Zion AME Church by a close relative to Edwards on April 12, 1912, the same day the "Titanic" left on its ill-fated transatlantic voyage.
When Rosa was born in Tuskegee to the "roving" McCauleys, the population was 3,000, described by Booker T. Washington in 1881 as "a town such as one rarely sees in the South, its quiet shady streets and taseteful and rich dwellings remind me of a New England village." Rosa's mother was very much impressed by Booker T. Washington and embraced his notion that high moral character and absolute cleanliness were "civilizing agents" that would help blacks excel in America. Along with the Bible, Washington's 1901 autobiography, "Up from Slavery," was a fixture in the McCauley house. Leona Edwards McCauley, determined on betterment for her baby, harbored a bold hope that just being in Tuskegee, considered the best place in Alabama for African-Americans to educate themselves, would rub off on her daughter.
It is recalled, however, that the African-American condition in the South when Rosa was born was such that while a man could be punished for beating a horse or killing birds, it was next to impossible to prevent a mob from torturing, or lynching and burning a human being.
Rosa McCauley's parents found little joy in their dirt-road poverty and the strains it put on their marriage. At one point, James' brother, Robert, came to live with them. The family left Tuskagee when Rosa was only two years old. Later on they lived for a time with James McCauley's parents and large extended family, four children sharing a bedroom with a dirt floor in Abbeville, but when Rosa was still small Leona left Abbeville and moved back in with her own family in Pine Level. After that, Rosa's father virtually disappeared from his daughter's life, when saw him when she was five and not again until she was an adult and married.
Early on Rosa learned she was not a full Negro but of mixed blood, a mulatto; in fact, several of her family members were often mistaken for white. Her younger brother, Sylvester, was light-skinned and looked Asian, and her grandfather Edwards was very light-complected with straight hair. On of her maternal great-grandfathers, James Percival, an indentured servant of Pine Level's Wright family, was a white Scottish-Irishman who had emigrated to Charleston, SC.
Although nonfarming, like many Alabama families the McCauleys fell victim to a plague of weevils that devastated the state's cotton plantions and ending its prosperity. Health care for African-Americans was virtually nonexistant.
As a shy, mild-mannered, frail little girl who was often ill with chronic tonsillitis, Rose was guided through her life by a deep Christian faith and love and respect for all humanity, and history was made on December 1, 1955, when Rose, then a weary, prim, bespectacled, 42-year-old mulatto seamstress, refused to give up her seat on the Cleveland Avenue bus in Montgomery to a white man. This most courageous act is now considered the beginning of the American civil rights movement.
-- Excerpts, "Rosa Parks," (2000), Douglas Brinkley