ROSA PARKS SAYS BLACKS MUST FIGHT FOR EQUALITY

Symbol of civil rights movement stood up for her rights by sitting down.

Rosa Parks glided into the noisy room and eased into a folding chair. Her silver hair was piled in a loose braid that wrapped around her head. A pair of glasses, which seemed too big for her face, slid slowly down her nose.

This wasn't the Rosa Parks we had pictured. We envisioned a short-tempered ox of a woman _ not a modest, grandmotherly type who waited patiently for our questions.

Parks, now 78, gained national prominence in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., city bus to a white person. She was arrested _ and quickly became a symbol of the civil rights movement.

When Parks was a girl, she couldn't go to many restaurants, drink out of some water fountains or use public restrooms. She has seen things change over the past 36 years. Although segregation is no longer considered acceptable, Parks says the fight for equal rights must continue.

"Many minorities, including blacks, are not treated as fairly (or) have the same privileges of others who are in power," she said at an Indiana Black Expo luncheon in July. "And in many instances, we don't have the same opportunities even though we don't have the same type of racism and segregation.

"But there are ways that can be used, or means that can be used, to discourage (and) make people feel that they don't have their place in a free society. . . . Until everybody can enjoy the same opportunities and the same responsibilities, people can't be equal, and I would have to say that many blacks are not treated fairly."

Parks grew up in segregated Pine Level, Ala., where she was treated as a second-class citizen.

"(The white girls) went to separate and segregated schools. They had the full nine months of school. We had about five (in the early 1920s). And of course they had a nice building, a brick building. . . . We only had a little building that had no glass windows, just had the shutters. One teacher taught the whole school."

Parks was one of the few girls in her community to finish junior high school. She was forced to take high school classes at Alabama State College in Montgomery because there were no "black high schools."

With only a few more courses to complete before graduation, Parks had to drop out to help care for her ill grandmother, who died a few months later. She was 21 when she was able to return to school and receive her high school diploma from Alabama State.

Despite her humble beginnings and the segregation that she grew up with, Parks never intended to become a major name in the civil rights movement. She has said she refused to move to the back of the bus because she was tired, not to prove a point.

"At the time I was arrested, there were many other people who had suffered humiliation at some time and other mistreatment from the bus drivers and the bus company," she says. "The time had come when we as a people would not accept that kind of treatment."