A Quote by Marian Wright Edelman

[Rosa Louise] Parks used to say, "Everybody looks at me because I sat down once in Montgomery, but the real hero is a woman named Septima Clark."She created the Citizenship Schools [where civil-rights activists taught basic literacy and political education classes].

Marian Wright Edelman

Quote Topics

Activists Basic Because Citizenship Civil Clark Classes Created Down Education Everybody Hero Literacy Looks Me Montgomery Named Once Parks Political Political Education Real Rights Rosa Sat Say Schools She Taught Used Woman

Quote Author

Marian Wright Edelman
American - Activist
Born: June 6, 1939

If Rosa Parks had taken a poll before she sat down in the bus in Montgomery, she'd still be standing.

Mary Frances Berry

There were three Selma-to-Montgomery marches in March 1965, and Rosa Parks had missed the first one. Parks, whose act of civil disobedience sparked the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, moved to Detroit two years later for safety reasons.

Douglas Brinkley

You probably know the name of Rosa Parks. You probably know that her refusal to move to the colored section in the back of a city bus sparked the Montgomery bus boycotts, one of the pivotal moments in the American civil rights movement.

Michel Martin

Rosa Parks was primed, she had the Civil Rights Movement behind her, she didn't just decide to sit on the bus, it was strategic.

Aisha Hinds

Persistence. Change doesn't happen overnight. You have to stay with it. Rosa Parks helped start the Civil Rights movement in earnest in 1955. Then it was nearly a decade until the Civil Rights Act was passed.

Kabir Sehgal

In many ways, history is marked as 'before' and 'after' Rosa Parks. She sat down in order that we all might stand up, and the walls of segregation came down.

Jesse Jackson

Rosa Parks was a woman of strength, conviction, and morality. Her action on December 1, 1955, to defy the law made her a leading figure in our nation's civil rights history.

John Shimkus

Rosa Parks' entire career has been one as working as a civil rights activist.

Douglas Brinkley

I think, along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks will go down as one of the two most well-known and remembered figures out of the Civil Rights Movement.

Douglas Brinkley

There were these great women in Montgomery, [Rosa Louise] Parks was among them. Jo Ann Robinson [who organized the bus boycott] was among them. It's always these ordinary women and men of grace who have been waiting and seething and planning to change things that are unjust that bring movement.

Marian Wright Edelman

If Willie Nelson had been Rosa Parks, there never would have been a civil rights movement in this country, because he refuses to leave the back of the bus.

Kinky Friedman

Rosa Parks will be remembered for her lasting contributions to society. Her legacy lives on in the continued struggle for civil rights around the world. She will be missed.

Jim Costa

I heard of Martin Luther King Jr. when I was 15 years old. I heard of Rosa Parks. And I met Dr. King in 1958 at the age of 18. I met Rosa Parks ... But to pick up a fun comic book - some people used to call them "funny books" - to pick this little book up, it sold for 10 cents, 12 pages or 14 pages? 14 pages I digested. And it inspired me. And I said to myself, "If the people of Montgomery can do this, maybe I can do something. Maybe I can make a contribution."

John Lewis

The civil rights movement would experience many important victories, but Rosa Parks will always be remembered as its catalyst.

Jim Costa

Half a century ago, the amazing courage of Rosa Parks, the visionary leadership of Martin Luther King, and the inspirational actions of the civil rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make real the promise of America for all her citizens.