- "Each person must live their life as a model for others."
-- Rosa Parks - "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?"
-- Rosa Parks - "I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I don't think there is anything such as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say you're happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I haven't reached that stage yet."
-- Rosa Parks - "I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear."
-- Rosa Parks - "I knew someone had to take the first step and I made up my mind not to move."
-- Rosa Parks - "I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people."
-- Rosa Parks - "It was not pre-arranged. It just happened that the driver made and demand and I just didn't feel like obeying his demand . . . I was quite tired after spending a full day working."
-- Rosa Parks - "Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others."
-- Rosa Parks - "My only concern was to get home after a hard day's work."
-- Rosa ParksGreat Black Americans - Rosa Parks... - "Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it."
-- Rosa Parks - "Whatever my individual desires were to be free, I was not alone. There were many others who felt the same way."
-- Rosa Parks - "The only tired I was, was tired of giving in."
-- Rosa Parks (on refusing to give up her seat on the bus) - "All I was doing was trying to get home from work."
-- Rosa Parks - "My only concern was to get home after a hard day's work."
-- Rosa Parks - "We didn't have any civil rights, it was just a matter of survival. I remember going to sleep as a girl, hearing the Ku Klux Klan ride at night… afraid the house would burn down."
-- Rosa Parks - "Victory or defeat? It is the slogan of all-powerful militarism in every belligerent nation. And yet, what can victory bring to the proletariat?"
-- Rosa Parks - "I believe that we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom."
-- Rosa Parks - "I was determined to achieve the total freedom that our history lessons taught us we were entitled to, no matter what the sacrifice."
-- Rosa ParksAfrican Style
QUOTATIONS ABOUT ROSA PARKS - "If Rosa Parks had taken a poll before she sat down in the bus in Montgomery, she'd still be standing."
-- Mary Frances Berry - "If Rosa Parks had not refused to move to the back of the bus, you and I might never have heard of Dr. Martin Luther King."
-- Ramsey Clark - "If Willie Nelson had been Rosa Parks, there never would have been a civil rights movement in this country, because he refuses to leave the back of the bus."
-- Kinky Friedman - "I am Classic Rock Revisited. I revisit it every waking moment of my life because it has the spirit and the attitude and the fire and the middle finger. I am Rosa Parks with a Gibson guitar."
-- Ted Nugent
|
RELATED RESOURCES
by Rosa Parks
My Story
How We Tell the Story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott