Rosa Parks: My Story

People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, [...] the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.

The overseer beat him, tried to starve him, wouldn't let him have any shoes, treated him so badly that he had a very intense, passionate hatred for white people. My grandfather was the one who instilled in my mother and her sisters, and in their children, that you don't put up with bad treatment from anybody. It was passed down almost in our genes,

One of my greatest pleasures there was enjoying the smell of bacon frying and coffee brewing and knowing that white folks were doing the preparing instead of me. There was swimming in the man-made lake, volleyball, square dancing. It was quite enjoyable to be with at Highlander. We forgot what color anybody was. I was forty-two years old, and it was one of the few times in my life up to that point when I did not feel any hostility from white people.

What I learned best at Miss White's school was that I was a person with dignity and self-respect, and I should not set my sights lower than anybody else just because I was black.

At the time i didn't realize why there was so much Klan activity, but later I learned that it was because African-American soldiers werre returning from World War Iasn acting as if they deserved equal rights because they had served their country.

That was a difference between black slaves and white indentured servants. Black slaves were usually not allowed to keep their names, but were given new names by their owners.

I had decided that I would not go anywhere with a piece of paper in my hand asking white folks for any favors. I had made that decision myself, as an individual.

I always advise students who like to read that they should read everything form license plates on cars to signs on the highway, fiction, nonfiction, newspapers, magazines—I mean everything. You never know what you might learn or when and where you can use the information.

We had a saying that we worked "from can to can't," which means working from when you can see (sunup) to when you can't (sundown).

It was just a matter of survivalーlike getting off the roadーso we could exist form day to day.