This is a Geocache dedicated to the life
and memory of Mrs. Rosa Parks,
a pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement.
Rosa Parks in 1955, with Martin Luther King, Jr.
Rosa grew up in the southern United States in Alabama. Her full name was Rosa Louise McCauley and she was born in Tuskegee, Alabama on February 4, 1913 to Leona and James McCauley. Her mother was a teacher and her father a carpenter. She had a younger brother named Sylvester.
Her parents separated while she was still young and she, with her mother and brother, went to live on her grandparent's farm in the nearby town of Pine Level. Rosa went to the local school for African-American children where her mother was a teacher.
Rosa's mother wanted her to get a high school education, but this wasn't easy for an African-American girl living in Alabama in the 1920s. After finishing up elementary school at Pine Level she attended the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls. Then she attended the Alabama State Teacher's College in order to try and get her high school diploma. Unfortunately, Rosa's education was cut short when her mother became very ill. Rosa left school to care for her mother.
When Rosa was nineteen, Rosa and Raymond met one another through a mutual friend. They became friends which later developed into a romantic relationship with each other. Raymond was an immaculate dresser and considered to be very handsome and charming. He was also a successful barber and worked in Montgomery.
A year later in 1932, they married at her mother's house in Montgomery. He was 29 and she was 20, and she would work part time jobs while going back to school. She finally earnined her high school diploma and this would forever be something she was very proud of.
Although Raymond did not have a formal education, he did hunger for knowledge. Self taught, he had a thorough knowledge of domestic affairs and current events. Many people thought he was college educated. He spent his life encouraging others to get an education.
Raymond and Rosa Parks
During this time, the city of Montgomery was segregated. This meant that things were different for white people and black people. They had different schools, different churches, different stores, different elevators, and even different drinking fountains. Places often had signs saying "For Colored Only" or "For Whites Only". When Rosa would ride the bus to work, she would have to sit in the back in the seats marked "for colored". Sometimes she would have to stand even if there were seats open up front.
Growing up Rosa had lived with racism in the south. She was scared of the members of the KKK who had burned down black school houses and churches. She also saw a black man get beaten by a white bus driver for getting in his way. The bus driver only had to pay a $24 fine. Rosa and her husband Raymond wanted to do something about it. They joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Rosa saw the opportunity to do something when the Freedom Train arrived in Montgomery. The train was supposed to not be segregated according to the Supreme Court. So Rosa led a group of African-American students to the train. They attended the exposition on the train at the same time and in the same line as the white students. Some people in Montgomery didn't like this, but Rosa wanted to show them that all people should be treated the same.
The GM Transit Bus that Parks was on Dec 1 1955
It was on Thursday, December 1, 1955 that Rosa (now 42 years old) made her famous stand (while sitting) on the bus. Rosa had settled in her seat on the bus after a hard day's work. All the seats on the bus had filled up when a white man boarded. The bus driver told Rosa and some other African-Americans to stand up. Rosa refused. The bus driver said he would call the police. Rosa didn't move. Soon the police showed up and Rosa was arrested.
Rosa was charged with breaking a segregation law and was told to pay a fine of $10. She refused to pay, however, saying that she was not guilty and that the law was illegal. She appealed to a higher court.
That night a number of African-American leaders got together and decided to boycott the city buses. This meant that Africans would no longer ride the buses. One of these leaders was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He became the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which helped to lead the boycott.
It wasn't easy for people to boycott the buses as many African-Americans didn't have cars. They had to walk to work or get a ride in a carpool. Many people couldn't go into town to buy things. However, they stuck together in order to make a statement.
The boycott continued for 381 days! Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the segregation laws in Alabama were unconstitutional.
Parks on a Montgomery Bus, Dec. 21, 1956.
The day that Mongomery's transit system was de-segregated
Behind Parks is Nicholas C. Chriss, a UPI reporter covering the event.
Just because the laws were changed, things didn't get any easier for Rosa. She received many threats and feared for her life. Many of the civil rights leader's houses were bombed, including the home of Martin Luther King Jr. In 1957 Rosa and Raymond moved to Detroit, Michigan.
Once in Detroit, Parks helped in the first campaign for Congress by John Conyers. She persuaded Martin Luther King (who was not usually a person to endorse local candidates) to appear with Conyers, thereby helping the candidate's acceptance by African Americans who would vote for him. When Conyers was elected, he hired her as a secretary and receptionist for his congressional office in Detroit and she would do much of the daily constituent work (work with the people) for Conyers, Parks often focused on socio-economic issues including welfare, education, job discrimination, and affordable housing. She visited schools, hospitals, senior citizen facilities, and other community meetings and kept Conyers grounded in community concerns and activism.
In 1972, her personal life would take a front-seat to her public life when her husband Raymond was diagnosed with cancer. They would battle this together for the next five years. He lost his battle on August 19, 1977.
Raymond Parks (1903-1977)
Rosa would later say about her husband: "Raymond, my husband -- he is now deceased -- was another person who inspired me, because he believed in freedom and equality himself ... He believed in freedom and equality and all the things that would improve conditions."
She also said (about Raymond Parks) "He was the first, aside from my grandfather and Mr. Gus Vaughn, who was never actually afraid of white people. So many African Americans felt that you just had to be under Mr. Charlie's heel -- that's what we called the white man, Mr. Charlie -- and couldn't do anything to cross him. In other words, Parks believed in being a man and expected to be treated as a man."
In 1976, the City of Detroit officially renamed 12th street, Rosa Parks Boulevard.
In 1980, since she was widowed and without immediate family, she rededicated herself to civil rights and educational organizations. She co-founded the Rosa L. Parks Scholarship Foundation for college-bound high school seniors, to which she donated most of her speaker fees.
In February 1987 she co-founded, with Elaine Eason Steele, the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development, an institute that runs the "Pathways to Freedom" bus tours which introduce young people to important civil rights and Underground Railroad sites throughout the country. Though her health declined as she entered her seventies, Parks continued to make many appearances and devoted considerable energy to these causes.
She decided to retire in 1988 after many years in the working world having been a seamstress, housekeeper, hospital aide, and even a brief job at an Air Force Base.
President Bill Clinton with Rosa Parks, 1999
On August 30, 1994, Joseph Skipper, an African-American drug addict, entered her home and attacked the 81-year-old Parks in the course of a robbery. This would cause her to have anxiety upon returning to her small Detroit home because of the attack. Because of this incident, she moved into Riverfront Towers, a secure high-rise apartment building where she lived for the rest of her life.
Her later years saw her health failing, and her mental capacities diminish. She was at home when she passed-away on October 24, 2005 at the age of 92. She and her husband, Raymond, never had any children, and she had outlived her only sibling.
"The only thing that bothered me was that we waited so long to make this protest"
Congressman Conyers would later recall in an interview with CNN on that day: "You treated her with deference because she was so quiet, so serene — just a very special person ... There was only one Rosa Parks."
City officials in Montgomery and Detroit announced on October 27, 2005, that the front seats of their city buses would be reserved with black ribbons in honor of Parks until her funeral. Parks' coffin was flown to Montgomery and taken in a horse-drawn hearse to the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, where she lay in repose at the altar on October 29, 2005, dressed in the uniform of a church deaconess.
A memorial service was held there the following morning. One of the speakers, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said that if it had not been for Parks, she would probably have never become the Secretary of State. In the evening the casket was transported to Washington, D.C. and transported by a bus similar to the one in which she made her protest, to lie in honor in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.
With her body and casket returned to Detroit, for two days, Parks lay in repose at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Her funeral service was seven hours long and was held on November 2, 2005, at the Greater Grace Temple Church in Detroit. After the service, an honor guard from the Michigan National Guard laid the U.S. flag over the casket and carried it to a horse-drawn hearse, which was intended to carry it, in daylight, to the cemetery. As the hearse passed the thousands of people who were viewing the procession, many clapped, cheered loudly and released white balloons. Parks was interred between her husband and mother at Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery in the chapel's mausoleum.
The Rosa L. Parks Freedom Chapel Marker
The chapel was renamed the Rosa L. Parks Freedom Chapel in her honor. Parks had previously prepared and placed a headstone on the selected location with the inscription "Rosa L. Parks, wife, 1913–."
In 2005, the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation (DEGC) first announced a project for a new transit center in Downtown Detroit. In February 2007, the DEGC announced that a construction contract was awarded for the terminal and construction soon began shortly after the announcement and was completed the same year. The official name for the facility is "The Rosa Parks Transit Center".
Concept art for the Transit Center
The facility incorporates a soaring tensile canopy that picks up on similar public space themes present at Chene Park and soon to be built portions of the Detroit Riverfront.
There are many dedications to this person and her legacy. To many people of all walks and cultures, she became a symbol of the fight for equal rights and remains a symbol of freedom and equality to many folks to this day.
An interesting item that was found during the research for this cache. Mrs. Parks' had a recipe for 'Featherlite' Peanut Butter Pancakes.
While Ms. Parks' recipe for "Featherlite" peanut butter pancakes has a complete and specific ingredient list, it is a little light on instructions, so we've added some typical procedures for preparing pancakes.
1 cup flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1-1/4 cup milk
1/3 cup peanut butter (smooth)
1 tablespoon shortening or oil (for the pan)
DIRECTIONS:
1. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar and set aside.
2. In a separate bowl, blend the egg, milk, and peanut butter together until smooth.
3. Combine the dry and wet mixtures. To keep the pancakes tender, don't over mix. A few small lumps are ok.
4. Add the oil or shortening to a hot griddle or frying pan (Ms. Parks specified 275°F). And cook for about 60 seconds on each side. Enjoy with maple syrup, honey, or a dollop of jam.
The Geocache is a 2-stage Multi, with the starting point being on the Northeast Corner outside of the bus stop here on Southbound Woodward.
The final IS within Woodlawn Cemetery (the northern of the two cemeteries here) and is only available during Daylight Hours when the Cemetery is open to the public.
Mrs. Parks' interment in the Freedom Chapel is only open during certain times and is NOT required to find the final container for this cache.
The final is within walking distance of the Rosa L. Parks Freedom Chapel.