A Girl Named Rosa

Leaving Home to Learn

Rosa learned to read and count before she started school. When she was six, she began school at the black elementary school in Pine Level. There was one teacher for all grades. The white elementary school had a different teacher for each grade. Rosa and the other black children had to walk to school no matter how far away they lived. Even though there was a school bus, that was reserved for the white children. Sometimes the white children would throw things at Rosa and her friends from the windows. They would need to duck into the ditch to avoid getting hit.

Many black children in the South only went to school for a few months out of the year. When they weren’t in school, they would pick cotton alongside their family, earning only a few cents each day. Rosa was proud of the hard work she could do but she always wanted to go back to school.

When Rosa got older, they realized there was no black junior or high school in town. So, her mother made the decision to send Rosa away to Montgomery Industrial School. The school was more than twenty miles away, so Rosa would need to live with relatives in Montgomery. At this school all the girls were black. Even the teachers, including Miss Alice White who started the school, were white. Rosa had never had a white teacher before, but she didn’t mind.

At the Montgomery industrial school, Rosa studied math and science. She also learned how to knit and how to take care of a home. Rosa would dream of her future, and she eventually made plans to stay in Montgomery and continue her education.