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Rosa Louise McCauley Parks is born.
Rosa Parks "mother of the freedom movement" was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913, to Leona (née Edwards), a teacher, and James McCauley, a carpenter. -
Rosa becomes Rosa Parks.
On December 18th, 1932, Rosa married Raymond Parks. They met in the same year, when she was nineteen and he was twenty eight, and married in her mother's house. Raymond Parks was a barber from Montgomery and a member of the NAACP, which at the time was collecting money to support the defense of the Scottsboro Boys, a group of black men falsely accused of raping two white women. -
Recy Taylor speaks out.
Recy Taylor was kidnapped while leaving church and gang-raped by six white men. Her courage to speak out against this crime contributed to the empowerment of many to follow and inspired the rise of calls for civil/human rights for Black Americans. -
Ruby Stroud Floyd
32-year-old white woman Ruby Stroud Floyd claimed to have been raped by several black men in a black neighborhood in Martinsville, Virginia, resulting in their deaths by death penalty mass execution. -
Mack Ingram accused of "eye rape"
Mack Ingram was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to two years of hard labor for looking at a white teenager in Yanceyville, North Carolina. Ingram, a 44 yr old tobacco farmer, married, father of nine, was economically independent- owned his own mules, tools, and vehicle. He was known in his community as an upstanding citizen and devoted family man. By the time Ingram died in 1973, his family was destitute and alienated from their community. -
Martinsville Seven executed
Martinsville 7 were executed in Richmond, Virginia. This was the largest mass execution for rape in U.S. history. Francis DeSales Grayson
Frank Hairston Jr.
Howard Hairston
James Luther Hairston
Joe Henry Hampton
Booker T. Millner
John Clabon Taylor "God knows I didn't touch that woman, and I'll see Ya'll on the other side." -Howard Hairston -
Rosa refuses to move.
On December 5, 1955, Parks entered a bus. She sat down and watched the bus fill up. Once the white section was full, the driver, James F. Blake, took the sign that marked the black section and moved it behind the row where Parks was sitting. "You'd all better make light on yourselves and let me have these seats," he said.
When Parks refused to move, he threatened to call the police and have her arrested. "You may do that," she said. -
Rosa arrested.
As Rosa was being taken from the bus, she asked the police man "Why do you push us around?" He responded "I don't know, but it is the law, and you are under arrest." Parks was charged under Chapter 6, section 11 segregation law of the Montgomery code, although technically she had not taken a "white only" seat. She was found guilty, and charged $10, plus a $4 court fee. -
Bus boycott begins.
The Montgomery bus boycott began following Rosa's arrest, but was planned well in advance (though Rosa's refusal to move was not planned). On the day she was arrested, the Women's Political Council (WPC) distributed 35,000 leaflets encouraging Blacks to stay off the buses on Monday in protest. Over 40,000 members of the Black community participated. Some rode in cabs, some carpooled, while others walked, sometimes as much as 20 miles. -
Bus boycott ends.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott ended in December of 1956, having lasted 381 days. The Black residents of Montgomery had claimed their power- buses stood idle for months and the bus transit finances were impacted. -
Betty Jean Owens is raped.
Betty Jean Owens, a student at Florida A&M University, was gang-raped by four white men, William Collinsworth, Ollie Stoutamire, David Beagles, and Patrick Scarborough, who were armed with switchblades and shotguns, -
Betty Jean Owens testifies.
Given in a segregated Jim Crow courtroom in Tallahassee, Florida, Betty Jean Owen's testimony about the rape helped convince the all-white, all-male jurors to deliver a guilty verdict. The judge sentenced the four men to life in prison, a first for the South. The conviction and life sentences sent a powerful message. For the first time since Reconstruction, Black women could imagine state power being used to protect them AND hold white men accountable for their actions. -
Joan Little defends herself.
Joan Little kills the white deputy sheriff Clarence Alligood who had attempted to rape her. -
Joan Little is acquitted.
Joan Little became the first woman in U.S. history to be acquitted using the defense that she used deadly force to resist sexual assault. She had killed a guard in self-defense while incarcerated. "My life is not in the hands of the court. My life is in the hands of the people." -Joan Little -
Rosa leaves the world (a better place.)
Rosa Park's died of natural causes in her home in Detroit. Rosa's casket was transported to Washington, D.C. 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. She was the first woman and the second black person to lie in honor in the rotunda of the U.S. Capital. -
Alabama Legislature apologizes to Recy Taylor: HJR 194.
The Alabama Legislature officially apologized on behalf of the state, "for its failure to prosecute her attackers." Taylor's rape, refusal to remain silent, and the subsequent court cases were among the early instances of nationwide protest and activism among the African-American community, and ended up providing an organizational spark in the civil rights movement.
