Rosa Louise Mccauley Biography

Rosa Louise McCauley was born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her mother’s name was Leona McCauley and her father’s name was James McCauley. Her father was a carpenter and her mother was a rural school teacher. Soon after Rosa’s little brother, Sylvester Edwards, was born, her parents separated in 1915. While her father went north, her mother, brother, and she moved to Pine Level, Alabama to live with her mother’s parents (Notable Black American Women). Rosa McCauley did not have all the opportunities people have today to get an education. Since her mother was a schoolteacher, she taught McCauley how to read. After being taught by her mother, McCauley attended a segregated one-room school in Pine Level, Alabama starting at first grade. The school lacked many adequate school supplies. Also, black students from grades one through six were forced to walk while white students were provided bus transportation. Beginning at age 11, Rosa McCauley’s education consisted of segregated schools in Montgomery, Alabama that included the city’s Industrial School for Girls run by Alice L. White, a white abolitionist teacher, who started to give black girls a chance at education. Parks attended an all black junior high school called Booker T. Washington Junior High
Her husband’s name was Raymond Parks. They married when Rosa Parks was about twenty and Raymond Parks was twenty-nine. The wedding was at Leona McCauley’s residence in Montgomery, Alabama (Did Rosa Parks Have a Happy Marriage with Her Husband Raymond?). Raymond Parks was a barber and an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, known as the NAACP (Bio.com). After their marriage, both became respected members of Montgomery’s large black community. They both shared a passion for civil rights. On December of 1943 Rosa Parks also joined the NAACP of Montgomery and became a chapter secretary ("Rosa Parks."