Leon Metz Southwest Chronicle Edu©Educational.Dual Language Leon Metz 3rd Quarter 2014 | Page 15

EXPLORE. DISCOVER. DREAM.

THE SOUTHWEST collegian

Rosa Louise Parks

MilkMag

CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST

©

February 4, 1913
October 24, 2005

FLAG POLE SITTING FAD COMES TO TOWN
August 29, 1928

EDUCATION

Industrial School for Girls
Alabama State Teachers
College for Negroes
PLACE OF BIRTH

World Champion Sitter Shins up El Paso Hotel
Hussmann’ Flagpole as town folks gather ‘round.

AKA

ORIGINAL STORY 1928 EL PASO TEXAS

Tuskegee, Alabama
Rosa Louise McCauley

A Chronicle A SYNOPSIS
Quotes OF WISDOM
ROSA LOUISE PARKS

“People always say
that I didn’t give up
my seat because I
was tired ...
The only tired I was
was tired of giving
in.

EXPLORE. DISCOVER. DREAM.

several rows designated for “colored” passengers.
Though the city’s bus ordinance did give drivers the
them the authority to demand a passenger to give
up a seat to anyone (regardless of color). However,
Montgomery bus drivers had adopted the custom of
requiring black passengers to give up their seats to
white passengers, when no other seats were available. Rosa refused, remained seated and was arrested.

ROSA LOUISE PARKS
CIVIL RIGHTS PIONEER February 4, 1913

Her refusal to surrender her seat to a white passenger

Early Life INSIGHT
THE ADVENTURE BEGINS

Rosa Parks’s childhood
brought her early experiences with racial discrimination and activism
for racial equality. After
her parents separated,
Rosa’s mother moved
the family to Pine Level,
Alabama to live with
her parents, Rose and
Sylvester Edwards—both
former slaves and strong
advocates for racial
equality; the family lived
on the Edwards’ farm,
where Rosa would spend
her youth. In one experience, Rosa’s grandfather
stood in front of their
house with a shotgun
while Ku Klux Klan
members marched down
the street.
Rosa went on to attend
a segregated, one-room
school in Pine Level,
Alabama, that often
lacked adequate school
supplies such as desks.

In an era without television and radio, folks often look for means of entertainment outside of
the home. Now the Roaring
Twenties are enjoying an
odd spectacle of
“flagpole
sitting”.
Pole sitting sport
is the act
of sitting
on a pole,
typically
pole, for
as long
as possible. At
times
a
small
platform is
placed
at the top
of the pole but often the pole sitter rests upon the
pole unassisted. Pole-sitting is related to the ancient discipline of Stylitism, or column-sitting.
Famous column-sitters include St Simeon Stylites the Elder (c. 388-459) of Antioch (now Turkey) who sat on a column for 30 years. Stylitism
was often a religious or meditative experience for
the sitters.
friend dared actor Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly to sit

The odd spectacle set off a series of imitators
who sought fame and money and a chance to beat
pole sitters set

Here at home,
the state is all
set for Ben
Fox, world’s
pole sitter, to
shin up the Hotel Hussmann
afternoon

hours. Workmen yesterday completed lengthening the pole to
a height of 50 feet. Fox was on hand and immediately went up the pole for a “tour of inspection.”
He announced the pole in perfect condition and
said that it had about four feet of sway.
Hundreds on the street below thought that this

SOUTHWEST
C
THE

HRONICLE

“I’d see the bus pass ever 䁑