“There is work to do”

On December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white male passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, she signaled the start of the modern-day civil rights movement.

Many people don’t realize that Parks had worked for equal rights many years before that day in 1955, and she continued working for many more.

In 1987, when she was 74 years old, she helped start the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development to help youth achieve their highest potential.

“There is work to do,” she said in the book  Quiet Strength, which she wrote with Gregory J. Reed. “That is why I cannot stop or sit still. As long as a child needs help, as long as people are not free, there will be work to do. As long as an elderly person is attacked or in need of support, there is work to do. As long as we have bigotry and crime, we have work to do.”