Aquarius Season Playlist

Meet the Queen of Swords (IRL) - Rosa Parks

Civil rights legend Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. She was a Capricorn Rising with a 1st House Aquarius stellium, including her Sun, Mercury, and Uranus, plus a Scorpio Midheaven and a 12th House Capricorn Moon. She's the perfect air/water blend to represent the Queen of Swords IRL.

Parks' parents separated when she was a toddler, and her mother moved the family to Pine Level, Alabama, to be closer to her grandparents. Her grandparents had themselves been formerly enslaved and became vocal advocates for racial equality, and growing up in the segregated South, Rosa watched her elder relatives hold their ground throughout her childhood. She publicly recalled one moment when she watched her grandfather stand on the porch with a shotgun while the KKK marched down the street.

Parks attended a segregated school in Pine Level that routinely lacked adequate supplies. Black students were forced to walk to school while white students had access to a bus. Parks left school in the 11th grade to care for sick relatives and never returned, instead going to work in a shirt factory — though she did eventually earn her GED.

At 19, she married Raymond Parks in 1932. He was a barber and an active member of the NAACP, and Rosa joined the organization herself in 1943. The couple never had children but dedicated their lives to the NAACP's work; Rosa served as youth chapter leader and held secretary roles under the organization's president.

On December 1, 1955, Parks had just finished a long day working as a seamstress in a department store. Riding the bus home, she took a seat in the first few rows designated for Black passengers. As the bus filled up, the driver noticed white passengers standing in the aisle, stopped the bus, moved the sign separating Black and white passengers, and demanded that four Black passengers, including Parks, give up their seats — or have the police called to remove them. Three complied. Parks did not. When the driver demanded, "Why don't you stand up?" she replied, "I don't think I should have to stand up." She kept her cool and held her ground, and the driver called the police and had her arrested.

This legendary event kicked off the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The president of the NAACP began planning the demonstration the very night Parks was arrested. Starting December 5, 1955 — the day of her scheduled trial — people were encouraged not to use the bus system. The effort was a massive success, lasting more than a year. Parks was found guilty and fined $14 (around $150 today, adjusted for inflation), but the boycott itself was the real win. With dozens of buses sitting idle across Montgomery, transit companies took a serious financial hit. Segregationists retaliated — churches and homes were burned, and the NAACP president's house was bombed. Ultimately, the boycott proved pivotal in overturning Jim Crow laws in 1956.

After the boycott, Parks became a well-known civil rights symbol, but she was also facing real financial struggles — both she and her husband had lost their jobs over the incident. The couple moved to Detroit for a fresh start, where she worked as a secretary in a congressional office and became heavily involved with Planned Parenthood. In the early 2000s, Parks was diagnosed with dementia, and on October 24, 2005, she died in her Detroit apartment.

Parks received many honors during her lifetime, including the Spingarn Medal — the NAACP's highest honor — and the prestigious Martin Luther King Jr. Award. She was even named to TIME magazine's "20 Most Influential People of the 20th Century" list in 1999.

Parks perfectly exhibits the Queen of Swords archetype, showing us the importance of level-headedness and boundaries. Although she has passed, her civil rights legacy lives on.