American - Activist | February 4, 1913 - October 24, 2005
As far back as I can remember, I knew there was something wrong with our way of life when people could be mistreated because of the color of their skin.
Rosa Parks
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You spend your whole lifetime in your occupation, actually making life clever, easy and convenient for white people. But when you have to get transportation home, you are denied an equal accommodation. Our existence was for the white man's comfort and well-being; we had to accept being deprived of just being human.
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Time begins the healing process of wounds cut deeply by oppression. We soothe ourselves with the salve of attempted indifference, accepting the false pattern set up by the horrible restriction of Jim Crow laws.
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In it not easy to remain rational and normal mentally in such a setting where, even in our airport in Montgomery, there is a white waiting room... There are restroom facilities for white ladies and colored women, white men and colored men. We stand outside after being served at the same ticket counter instead of sitting on the inside.
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I don't think well of people who are prejudiced against people because of race. The only way for prejudiced people to change is for them to decide for themselves that all human beings should be treated fairly. We can't force them to think that way.
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I had felt for a long time that, if I was ever told to get up so a white person could sit, that I would refuse to do so.
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Have you ever been hurt and the place tries to heal a bit, and you just pull the scar off of it over and over again.
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The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute accepts people of any race. We don't discriminate against anyone. We teach people to reach their highest potential. I set examples by the way I lead my life.
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I was born 50 years after slavery, in 1913. I was allowed to read. My mother, who was a teacher, taught me when I was a very young child. The first school I attended was a small building that went from first to sixth grade. There was one teacher for all of the students. There could be anywhere from 50 to 60 students of all different ages.
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All I was doing was trying to get home from work.
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Why do you all push us around?
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Whatever my individual desires were to be free, I was not alone. There were many others who felt the same way.
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