By: Cody Dinsmore
Born a simple farmer on June 5th, 1914 in rural Dawson County, Georgia was Raymond Parks. He was the first of his family’s 16 children. His father Alfred and mother Leila were both hard working farmers just doing what they could to survive. Growing up, Raymond’s responsibilities included milking and feeding the goats, cows, husking corn and many other hard and laborious tasks. But it wasn’t until a mid-summer’s morning in the year 1928, that the young Parks knew where he was going.
While just 14 years old, his father wanted him to go fetch some liquor from some friends. So Parks hopped in his family’s Model T Ford and started driving. Coming home, a police officer stopped him, saw that he had liquor in the car, and arrested him. If Raymond had told him he was just 14, things would have been different, but he thought he was mature (and was) so he told the officer he was 16. He got locked up for three months. But during those three months,
