1. Read the text. Segueix els consells de lectura de l'exercici anterior.
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks
was born on February 4, 1913 and
died on October 24, 2005. She
was an African-American civil and
was called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement".
Rosa Parks' first event in her fight for civil rights
was in Montgomery, Alabama. On December 1, 1955, Parks
refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat
to make room for a white passenger. This disobedience
had the effect of
sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement and Parks
became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. She organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr., helping
to launch him to national prominence in the civil rights movement.
Although honored in later years for her action, she
suffered for it, losing her job as a
seamstress in a local department store. Eventually, she
moved to Detroit, Michigan, where she found similar work. From 1965 to 1988 she served as secretary and receptionist to African-American U.S. Representative John Conyers. After retirement from this position, she
wrote an autobiography and
lived a largely private life in Detroit. In her final years she
suffered from dementia.
Parks finally
received many honors ranging from the 1979 Spingarn Medal to the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal and a posthumous statue in the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall. Her death in 2005
was a major story in the United States' leading newspapers. She
was granted the posthumous honor of lying in honor at the Capitol Rotunda.
Source:
Wikipedia
