Rosa Parks (American English, A2-B1)

This mini-biography graded ESL lesson is about the life and achievements of American civil rights activist, Rosa Parks. This lesson is designed for students A2 and slightly higher levels of English. For teachers: get the lesson plan here Transcript: Rosa McCauley was born on February 4th, 1913 in Alabama, in the USA. At that time, black people had very different lives than white people because of racism. In the south of the country, they could not use the same facilities as white people. They had to sit at the back of buses, while white people sat at the front. In 1932, Rosa married Raymond Parks. The couple lived in Montgomery, Alabama, and joined a civil rights group, which worked to make life more fair for African-Americans by planning protests. On December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks was coming home from work on the bus. A white man got on, but he couldn’t find a place to sit. The bus driver told Rosa Parks to give the white man her seat. However, she felt that this was unfair, so she refused to move. The driver called the police and she was arrested. The civil rights group, led by Martin Luther King Jr, supported Rosa Parks. They organized a protest: African-Americans stopped taking the bus in Montgomery and walked to work instead. This bus protest lasted for more than a year. Finally, in December 1956, the city government changed the law. Black people could sit anywhere on the bus and didn’t have to give their seats to white people. The bus protest motivated people to organize other civil rights protests. In 1964, the law was changed so that black and white people had to be treated the same everywhere. By the 1970s, black and white people mostly shared the same facilities. After the protest, Rosa Parks moved north to Detroit. She continued to work on civil rights projects and met many famous people. In 1999, Rosa Parks received an important medal because of her civil rights work. She died on October 24th, 2005. Today, many schools and hospitals in the United States are named after Rosa Parks. The memory of her brave actions has motivated people to continue to fight against racism around the world.