Rosa Parks firmly stood up for what she believed and it was time for her to show the world who she was and what she believed in. Rosa was born on February 4th, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. Every since she was a little girl, her mother knew that God had a special purpose for her. She was raised by her mother because her father was never around. She recalled that he would stay several days and then leave again. She never saw him any more until she was an adult and married (Brinkley 21). She lived with her mother and brother in a small house. Her mother was a school teacher who sometimes traveled out of state to teach in different schools and in black churches. Rosa was also raised in part by her grandparents who lived nearby.
Growing up was hard for Rosa. It is upsetting to think that innocent children lives were in danger, because of the members of the Ku Klux Klan. This was a secret society that originated in southern states. Its purpose was to reassert white supremacy by the means of terrorism. Klan members would parade up and down the streets in front of Rosa's home. They never attacked her family, but she felt the violence of white supremacy at a very young age (Brinkley 25).
Rosa moved to Montgomery, Alabama at the age of eleven and her mom enrolled her at Montgomery Industrial school for girls. All of the teachers at this school were white, while the student body of two hundred and thirty to three hundred were entirely black. However she dropped out of school at the age of sixteen to care for both her grandmother, who died soon after, and then for her ailing mother. She was practically taking care of herself as well as her family, while the pressures of white supremacy, still were in full effect (Encarta 1).
Rosa also grew up under a strict racist law