Quote by Rosa Parks: “We didn't have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival.”

This quote starkly illustrates the brutal conditions faced by African Americans, where basic human rights were denied, reducing life to a struggle for mere existence. It underscores the severity of systemic oppression, showing how fundamental needs overshadowed any concept of civil liberties, highlighting profound injustice.

Reflecting on the harsh realities of segregation and discrimination in the Jim Crow South before the Civil Rights Movement, she emphasized the desperate struggle for basic human dignity.

American civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in December 1955 became a defining act of the civil rights movement. She worked for decades with the NAACP and is often credited as a catalyst for the Montgomery Bus Boycott.