Rosa Parks Quotes - Page 3

When that white driver stepped back toward us, when he waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats, I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night.

I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I don't think there is anything such as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say you're happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I haven't reached that stage yet.

Whatever my individual desires were to be free, I was not alone. There were many others who felt the same way.

The time had just come when I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed.

Racial pride and self-dignity were emphasized in my family and community.

We didn't have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next. I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down.

I had given up my seat before, but this day, I was especially tired. Tired from my work as a seamstress, and tired from the ache in my heart.

It was not pre-arranged. It just happened that the driver made a demand and I just didn't feel like obeying his demand. I was quite tired after spending a full day working.

When I see the leadership roles black women are taking today I am very encouraged.

I thought of Emmett Till, and when the bus driver ordered me to move to the back, I just couldn’t move.

Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it.

There were times when it would have been easy to fall apart or to go in the opposite direction, but somehow I felt that if I took on more step, someone would come along to join me.

I will always work for human rights for all people.

At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this. It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in.

I did not get on the bus to get arrested. I got on the bus to go home.

My only concern was to get home after a hard day's work.

An opportunity was being given to me to do what I had asked of others.

I'd see the bus pass every day… But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and a white world.

I had felt for a long time, that if I was ever told to get up so a white person could sit, that I would refuse to do so.

Why do you all push us around?

I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed. I had decided that I would have to know once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen.

My resisting being mistreated on the bus did not begin with that particular arrest…I did a lot of walking in Montgomery.

All I was trying to do was get home from work.

Arrest me for sitting on a bus? You may do that.

I was ready to die but give my consent never. Never, never.