Racial & Ethnic Groups in US

From one of the racial or ethnic groups covered in this course, select one important woman in historical or contemporary America who has made great contributions to gender equality and/or racial/ethnic equality, and write an essay that examines her life and contributions.

Instructions: Your essay must include at least the following information:

Her name and life time.
Her racial or ethnic background.
Justification of why she is an important woman.
Her life history from birth to death or the present.
Her contributions to gender equality and/or racial/ethnic equality in the United States or in the world (e.g., important publications or speeches, important role in a social movement, important accomplishments).
A discussion of her legacies and what you have learned from her.
This writing assignment is formal in context and I expect you to do all of the following: Write with purpose. Each sentence should contribute to your overall writing (no fillers like very very very very interesting). Do not use clichés, text speak (e.g. ROFL), emoji, non-text characters, or non-scholarly sources. You should write in paragraphs which are organized to fit together.

All Important Woman Essays must use APA or ASA formatting for in-text citations and reference list and be free of spelling and grammatical errors. You should divide the essay into a few sections and add subheadings for the sections. Your assignment should be typed, double-spaced, 12-point font, and be between 5-6 typed pages with one-inch margins on all sides and page numbers. Please do not vary your font, font size, spacing, or punctuation in an effort to overcome the length requirement, as this is readily apparent to your instructor. You may attach additional materials such as her photos and cover pages of her works.

ANSWER

ROSA PARKS BIOGRAPHY

Name and Lifetime History

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was born on 4th February 1913 in Alabama in the United States. Her father, James McCauley, was a carpenter and her mother, Leona McCauley, was a teacher. She suffered from chronic tonsillitis disease and hence had poor health when she was a child. After her parents’ divorce, she, together with her brother Sylvester McCauley and her mother, moved to Montgomery to live with her maternal grandparents. They attended African Methodist Episcopal Church. She was enrolled in Montgomery Industrial Schools for Girls when she was eleven years after going to various rural schools. She went to Alabama State Teachers College for her secondary education.

She got married in 1932 to Raymond Parks, who was a member of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advanced of Colored People (NAACP). She completed her secondary education in 1933 and got a seamstress job in the local sewing company. She decided to join the Montgomery chapter of NAACP in 1943, December, where she was appointed the secretary. In 1957, she lost her job because of the economic sanctions against activists. Her husband, mother, and she moved to the city of Detroit to join her brother and sisters-in-law. She was involved in Activism nationally in the mid-1960s, where she fought for rights and freedom. She joined Conyers’ congressional office, where she worked as a receptionist until 1988. She died on 24th October 2005 at the age of 92.

                                                       Ethnic Background

Rosa Parks was an African-American female activist. Apart from her African ancestry, one of her great grandfathers was Scots-Irish, while one of her great grandmothers was a Native enslaved American. There were no civil rights for African-American individuals during this period; therefore, she experienced rough times while growing up, which gave her more strength and courage. Although things were tougher for women during those times, Rosa Parks stood up for herself and against any form of racism. Rosa Parks hated that the whites were given high superiority. The blacks were given poor restrictions such as attending inferior schools, borrowing books from only black libraries, using the water from specific fountains and others.

Justification On Her Importance

Rosa Parks was an American civil rights leader well-known in 1955 after refusing to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated Alabama bus. She sat on a front section of the bus, which was mainly reserved for the white people, as black individuals were supposed to sit on the redesignated colored section at the back. Her refusal to move to the back seats resulted in her arrest because she broke the segregation laws and was taken to court. This sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and led to a nationwide effort to stop the racial segregation of public utilities. She was later released after the court ruled out the case and stated that the segregation on buses was unconstitutional. She went all over the state, speaking out for justice for black people. Her actions raised the international awareness of racism in the United States. Parks, therefore, became a global icon of civil rights movements.

Her Contribution to Ethnicity Equality in The United States

She helped in initiating the civil rights movement in the United States. Her actions of refusing to surrender her seats inspired many leaders of the local black community to form Montgomery Bus Boycott. She was honored as “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement” by the United States Congress. She, therefore, contributed to the struggle for racial equality in the country. The following are other contributions she made;

• She was involved in defense of the Scottsboro Boys, who were wrongly accused of raping white women in 1931 on a train.
• She worked as a secretary in NAACP and helped deal with various racism cases.
• She mobilized people to support Racy Taylor, a black woman who was kidnapped and raped by six white men while coming from church.
• She moved to Detroit and spent her remaining life fighting against racial and gender inequality.
• She was the co-founder of Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, which provided scholarships to many black youths and taught them everything concerning their rights and freedom.
• She wrote her biography book that encourages the fight against racial discrimination.
• She is among those influential people in the 20th century.

Her Legacies and What I Have Learnt from Her

Rosa Parks will be remembered for many contributions she made on the fight against racism since she was a catalyst in the Civil Rights Movement. Her being a civil rights activist after refusing to give up her seat to a white man therefore sparking up the fight against racial segregation is one of her legacies. She was given the title “the mother of the freedom movement” because of how she fought for the rights of black people. She was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr Congregation Gold Medal, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and NAACP award. From the story of Rosa Parks, I learned that people can fight for their values and beliefs by not condoning daily actions of injustice and oppression. She also made me understand that a change can be made through protests. The message also tells us not to allow other people to violate our rights and freedom. We should therefore treat everyone equally without considering their race, ethnic, religion or gender.