“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color- line,” predicts Negro intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) formed

President Harry Truman orders the desegregation of U.S. military forces

1903

1909

February 4, 1913

1915

1918

1924

Dec. 1932

1931-33

1933

1941

1942

1943

1944

1945

1946

c. 1947

1948

1949-1963 >>

Rosa Louise McCauley born in Tuskegee, Alabama, the daughter of a carpenter and a schoolteacher

Baptized in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church
Moves with her mother and younger brother to her grandparents’ farm in Pine Level, Alabama

Begins attending segregated elementary school in Pine Level

Enrolls in the Montgomery Industrial School, a private school run by Northern liberal white women, popularly known as “Miss White’s Industrial School for Girls”

Marries Raymond Parks, a barber, in Pine Level, Alabama

Raymond is active in the National Committee to Defend the Scottsboro Boys, eight black youths unjustly convicted of raping two white women

Receives high school diploma and attends Alabama State College in Montgomery

Works as a secretary at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, an integrated federal facility; rides on integrated buses on the base

Is denied the right to register to vote
Is put off a city bus for refusing to enter by the back door
Becomes secretary of the Montgomery NAACP

Is denied the right to vote for a second time

Successfully registers to vote at last

Attends a NAACP leadership training seminar in Jacksonville, Florida

Begins working as a seamstress in a local tailoring shop

Makes a speech before the Alabama NAACP convention and is elected secretary of the state convention

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