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This site provides an overview of the life of Rosa Parks and the impact that she had on the civil rights movement and the impact that she continues to have in today. This site is extremely useful in exploring the image on hand as it provides the context and background of Rosa's life and experiences and how this culminated in the image and impact that Rosa Parks has for many of us today. In addition, it provides information on the image in that the photo in question is a historic photo that was staged for the purposes of history and meaning. This site provides swaths of extremely useful information and is extremely relevant for our discussion at hand.

This source and site is very pertinent as it provides information on the life of Rosa Parks before and after the Montgomery Bus incident and subsequent boycott and the impact her legacy remains with us today. In particular, this source provides both video of a segment done on the subject as well as the text transcript. The reason that this site and source is important and relevant to the analysis of the image at hand is due to the fact that it provides us with the context of Rosa's struggle and how her struggle helped change the nature of America. This is a very relevant source that helps us place ourselves in the shoes of Rosa Parks and the struggle that she fought and overcome.

The Modern American Poetry site offers poems and illustrations to students of the arts. This photo essay on The Great Depression provides a pictorial timeline of the major events of the Great Depression. There are several photographs by Walker Evans, the photographer behind the image we are discussing this week. Please note: The original source of these photos- The Library of Congess- was unavailable due to the government shutdown at the time I was trying to access the LOC site.

This CNN.money site combines information from CNN plus Fortune and Money magazines. This article by David Whitford of Fortune magazine goes into some detail about the story behind the photograph we are studying this week. The woman in the photo (taken when she was only 27 years old) is identified as Allie Mae Burroughs. Her son, Charles Burroughs recalls what life was like for him and his family during the Depression years.

This is an article of the return to Hale County, Alabama to speak with the descendants of Walker Evans' famous depression era portraits.  In this interview with Charles Burroughs, the son of Allie Mae Burroughs, he describes vividly the backdrop to the famous portrait.  The tough life of the depression era is evident in the portrait of 27 year old Allie Mae who looks like hard work has aged her and her eyes well beyond 27 years.

The son of Allie Burroughs swore he would never do what he's doing right now (an interview)," says Charles Burroughs. Tall and broad with a bald pate and those familiar gray eyes. Blue shirt, khaki pants, aviator glasses. Thick, flat fingers, grit under the nails. He has come reluctantly to meet me after work at a Waffle House in Tuscaloosa. Still angry after all these years at how a writer and a photographer on assignment for this magazine moved into his house when he was just a boy, 4 years old (he remembers the day), and stayed for weeks, and while the family was working in the fields, snooped around in dresser drawers and under beds, and took notes, and took pictures, and shared what they had taken with all the world. James Agee and Walker Evans gave us a lasting image of the Depression; Charles Burroughs and his family got squat. This site lets you in to the confusion and heart ache of the children of Allie-Mae Burroughs, the psychological aftermath the children has endured in their working situations. It also expresses how Charles Burroughs parents worked and just never had a chance, in a mostly African American area, making some 5.50 and dropping to 5.15 and hour if late to work once, or ever have to leave before the line shuts down for the day, to support a family. It also touches on the editors from Fortune who sent Agee and Evans south wanted them to write about poor whites. That they found their subjects in Hale County was more than a little perverse. Most of the county's people, and an even higher percentage of the poor people, were and are African American. This site also gives incite into the black society in this era i.e. - one Yolanda Robinson, who worked in quality control for a seafood company, is a sharecropper's granddaughter and is black. She won prizes for elocution in high school, joined the Navy, married young, and was widowed in her 20s. On her second stint at the catfish plant, had hoped she'd never have to

The gilderlehrman.org site focuses on American History and is "devoted to the improvement of history education". The site provides tools for both teachers and students to enhance the study of American History. This page contains an article by Susan Ware that talks about women and the Great Depression and the important role played by women in helping their families survive through this time and how little they had to work with in order to do so.

Another angle to this photo is women's roles during the Great Depression. This website examines exactly that. Men and women saw the Great Depression. For women, there became more pressure to take care of their families as food and money were very hard to come by.

This site gives more insight on women's contributions during the Depression. It focuses on the women's roles during that particular time. The women of the depression showed a lot of courage and they were determined to survive during these tough times. Husbands brought home reduced wages and the women did what ever it took at home to take care of the family. An example of this would be when women would buy old bread , eat less and warmed dishes to save on gas.

Months prior to Parks arrest for civil disobedience, four other women had been arrested for refusing to give up their seat on a bus as well. One of the more well-known women of the group was 15 year old Claudette Colvin who like Parks was involved with the NAACP - Colvin was a mentee of Parks. Originally the boycott and civil action case was to be centered around Colvin until it was discovered that she was pregnant and had trouble keeping composed when upset. Parks arrest was chosen to launch a challenge against segregation laws due to her impeccable character and reputation. Colvin and the three other women, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith re-emerged when they agreed to file a civil action on February 1, 1956. The outcome of this civil action was a panel of three judges agreed 'that Montgomery segregation codes "deny and deprive plaintiffs and other Negro citizens similarly situated of the equal protection of the laws and due process of law secured by the Fourteenth Amendment."'

This article gives information about the famous picture of Rosa Parks on the bus. After seeing this picture its safe to assume that this was the day that Rosa Parks felt that she would not get up from her seat. And that the man in the picture was either the bus driver or an angry white man disturbed because of where Rosa was sitting. However the man in the picture was not the driver nor an angry white man. He was a reporter and his name was Nicholas C. Chriss. This historic picture was the day after the Supreme Court ruled that segregated busing was illegal. That day was December 21, 1956.

This site contains several inspirational quotes by Rosa Parks. My favorite quote is "I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear". This quote could apply to anything , scoring a goal , passing a test or winning a race. I feel that the day Rosa choose to stand her ground and refuse to leave her seat explains the meaning of this quote

This site focuses on the preparation for the boycott. The day Rosa Parks was arrested 300 women from the Women's Political Council were ready to get the word out. The Women's Political Council was a group that was created in 1946. This group was created when dozens of black people were getting arrested on buses. 35,000 circulars were made to get people together to start the boycott.

This site lists a number of her achievements from 1979 to 2000. In 1979 the NAACP award her the Spinard medal which is the NAACP's highest honor. In 1983, she was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame. In September of 1992, Rosa Parks was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award for her years of community service and her life time effort to promote social change through non violent means. Also in 1992, she published two books. One is called My Story and the other Quiet Strength. I feel that quiet strength is what she executed that day on the bus. In 2000, the State of Alabama awarded Rosa Parks the Governor's Medal of Honor for Extraordinary Courage.

This site focus's on who Rosa really was. She was raised by two parents and born in Alabama. Rosa had one sibling and she and was home schooled until she was eleven years old. As a child she suffered from chronic tonsillitis. There was no surprise when Rosa decided to take her famous stand , considering that at an early age she figured out that there was a white world and a black one. She witnessed segregation everywhere from transportation, education and most community services. Not being blind to what was going on around her made her become a member of the civil rights movement in 1943. She joined a group called the NAACP and became the secretary to the president. She held that position until 1957.

This site and blog is relevant to our discussion on race and an analysis of the image at hand as it provides us with the background information of race in America and the influence that Rosa Parks had in this regard. Specifically, the site discusses the actions of Rosa Parks and the context in which she lived in how she challenged the Jim Crow Laws and how her actions helped spark the movement that would change American society and culture. The site also provides some background information on the famous photo that we are analyzing in this unit. The contextual and background information provided in this site is useful with our analysis in this unit.

This website not only discusses how Rosa Parks helped African Americans, but how she also helped women. In those days, women weren't allowed to do much as it was. Rosa Parks changed that in some way when she stood up to a white man on a bus. Rosa Parks single handedly changed the bus rules where African Americans were not only allowed to ride the bus and sit anywhere, but were allowed to apply for jobs as drivers as well. This website is useful in exploring the image because it shows you how one woman had an effect on an entire race. The website even uses the image on it's main page.

Rosa Parks is considered not only hero, but an African American woman who stood up to injustice and decided to take a peaceful stand against segregation. Rosa Parks gave African Americans a sense of dignity that was soon reaffirmed by being able to ride the bus, just like the "whites" did. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was able to use Rosa Park's actions as a platform to claim freedom and equality. This action, caused the African Americans to start realizing that they were equal to the whites. This gave them a sense of entitlement and lead to other movements that benefited all human beings, not only in the United States of America, but all over the world. This "woman" is truly a hero. Walking alone the street in Montgomery county, just like the whites did, was a triumph step towards equality.