{"id":1700,"date":"2019-08-01T09:16:27","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T09:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/?page_id=1700"},"modified":"2019-08-01T09:16:27","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T09:16:27","slug":"rosa-parks-on-life-in-montgomery-alabama-1956-1958","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/26-the-affluent-society\/rosa-parks-on-life-in-montgomery-alabama-1956-1958\/","title":{"rendered":"Rosa Parks on Life in Montgomery, Alabama (1956-1958)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In\nthis unfinished correspondence and undated personal notes, Rosa Parks recounted\nliving under segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, explained why she refused to\nsurrender her seat on a city bus, and lamented the psychological toll exacted\nby Jim Crow.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

City Bus lines. Front section reserved for white\npassengers \u2026 seating space for 10 persons left vacant whether or not they board\nthe bus enroute to town. The bus driver often passes colored passengers, with\nthese empty seats, when he thinks enough are standing in the aisles. This means\na larger number will be waiting for the next bus. The next bus driver may also\nnot stop for colored passengers. Sometimes colored passengers have to pay their\nfare at the front of the bus and then go to the rear door for entrance, which\nis already overcrowded. It is not uncommon for a bus driver to order a colored\nwoman to vacate a seat for a white man to be seated in the same space. Such\npractices and many other unjust things are regular routine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On reaching my job, which is at Montg\u2019s largest Dept.\nStore, Montgy Fair, there are the drinking fountains throughout the store,\nplainly marked. Whites Only \u2013 on one and Colored on the other. The Women\nemployee restroom is for white. The ladies lounge for public is known to be for\nwhite only without the sign. The white and Colored women employees and colored\nwomen shoppers use the same lounge. The Colored women employees eat their lunch\nin a little room next to the restroom. The doors between the toilet and the\ndining area can not be closed tightly enough to stay shut. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a luncheonette counter where some colored\nhelp is employed as cooks, dishwashers, etc., but Colored people are not served\nat the counter. They may buy the food and take it away and eat it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colored people are employed at this store as maids,\nporters, elevator operators, truck drivers except that I work in the tailor\nshop doing men\u2019s clothing alterations as a helper of the tailor who is colored.\nOne colored man is the window dresser. I don\u2019t know what else he does. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a large number of Negroes shopping in this\nstore most of the time. This thing called segregation here is a complete and\nsolid pattern as a way of life. We are conditioned to it and make the best of a\nbad situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the Public Library, located near the downtown\nshopping section, a Colored person will not be permitted to come in and read a\nbook or be given one to take out. The requested book will be sent to the\ncolored branch library on the east side of town, if it is not already available\nthere. Last year some NAACP Youth Council Members who are students went to this\ndowntown library for reference books to use in school. They were told the books\nwere there but they would be sent to the branch library to be issued to them there,\neven though the young people lived on the west side of town. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you see my dear, it seems endless. I could go on\nand on and there would still be some more to tell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The schools are all segregated and of course unequal.\nThe churches are also segregated. White people sometimes visit the colored\nchurches but I don\u2019t know if any colored people go to white churches except as\nnurses to look after small children. I don\u2019t know of any going as guests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know how helpful this is to you, but I hope it\nmay enlighten you a little about the way of life in the South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may write again and let me know of something in\nparticular that you want to do research work on. Employment, housing, voting,\neducation and social aspects are all fertile fields for research based on\nracial discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am sure you read of the lynch-murder of young Emmett\nTill of Chicago. This case could be multiplied many times in the South, not\nonly Miss., but Ala., Georgia, Fla. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my lifetime, I have known Negroes who were killed\nby whites without any arrests or investigations and with little or no\npublicity. It is the custom to keep such things covered up in order not to\ndisturb what is called [letter left incomplete.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had been pushed around all my life and felt at this\nmoment [her refusal to surrender her seat on a Montgomery City Bus] that I\ncouldn\u2019t take it anymore. When I asked the policeman why we had to be pushed\naround? He said he didn\u2019t know. \u201cThe law is the law. You are under arrest.\u201d I\ndidn\u2019t resist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to feel the nearness of something secure. It is\nsuch a lonely feeling that I am cut off from life. I am nothing, I belong\nnowhere and to no one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is just so much hurt, disappointment and\noppression one can take. The bubble of life grows larger. The line between\nreason and madness grows thinner. The reopening of old wounds are unthinkably\npainful. Time begins the healing process of wounds cut deeply by oppression. We\nsoothe ourselves with the salve of attempted indifference, accepting the false\npattern set up by the horrible restrictions of Jim Crow laws. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us look at Jim Crow for the criminal he his and\nwhat he had done to one life multiplied millions of times over these United\nStates and the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He walks us on a tight rope from birth to the end of\nlife\u2019s span, whether it be long or of brief duration. Little children are so\nconditioned early to learn their places in the segregated pattern as they take\ntheir first toddling steps and are weened from their mother\u2019s breast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Rosa\nParks. Writings, Notes, and Statements, 1956 to 1998; Drafts of early writings;\nAccounts of her arrest and the subsequent boycott, as well as general reflections\non race relations in the South. Rosa Parks Papers. Manuscript Division,\nLibrary of Congress. Available online\nvia Library of Congress (https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/item\/mss859430226\/).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this unfinished correspondence and undated personal notes, Rosa Parks recounted living under segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, explained why she refused to surrender her seat on a city bus, and lamented the psychological toll exacted by Jim Crow. City Bus lines. Front section reserved for white passengers \u2026 seating space for 10 persons left vacant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":817,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1700","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1700"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1701,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1700\/revisions\/1701"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}