Parks and her husband left Montgomery in 1957 to find work, first traveling to Virginia and later to Detroit, Michigan. Parks supported the militant Black power movement, whose leaders disagreed with the methods of the nonviolent movement represented by Martin Luther King. Rosa's Activism Begins with the NAACP. Rosa Parks' involvement in civil rights activism began to take shape when she joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1943. As part of the Montgomery chapter, Parks served as both the youth leader and secretary to E.D. Nixon, the president of the chapter. Parks became an NAACP activist in 1943, participating in several high-profile civil rights campaigns. In 1943 Rosa Parks joined the Montgomery NAACP and became its secretary, reuniting with her former classmate Johnnie Carr. With E. D. Nixon, she investigated cases involving police brutality, rape, murder, and discrimination. 1941: Parks starts work at Maxwell Air Force Base, which has an integrated cafeteria and trolley system. December 1943: Parks joins the Montgomery branch of the NAACP She married barber Raymond Parks in 1932, and the couple joined the Montgomery National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). When she inspired the bus boycott, Parks had been the secretary of the local NAACP for twelve years (1943-1956). She married barber Raymond Parks in 1932, and the couple joined the Montgomery National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). When she inspired the bus boycott, Parks had been the secretary of the local NAACP for twelve years (1943-1956). On 1 December 1955 local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) leader Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. In her work with the NAACP, Parks championed the cause of the Scottsboro Boys, a group of young African American men falsely accused of raping a white woman. She campaigned for a fair hearing for two black Montgomery women, Recy Taylor and Gertrude Perkins, who had accused white men of raping them. About a decade later, Rosa Parks joined NAACP’s Montgomery, Alabama chapter, and she later served as the secretary for that chapter. Parks had attended a public meeting of concerned citizens in late November 1955 after the murder of Black teenager Emmett Till. Rosa Parks (born February 4, 1913, Tuskegee, Alabama, U.S.—died October 24, 2005, Detroit, Michigan) was an American civil rights activist whose refusal to relinquish her seat on a public bus precipitated the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama, which became the spark that ignited the civil rights movement in the United States. Rosa Parks (center, in dark coat and hat) rides a bus at the end of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Montgomery, Alabama, Dec. 26, 1956. Don Cravens/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images. Most of us know Rosa Parks as the African American woman who quietly, but firmly, refused to give up her bus seat to a white person Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama. That small act of December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks Is Arrested. On Thursday, December 1, 1955, the 42-year-old Rosa Parks was commuting home from a long day of work at the Montgomery Fair department store by bus. Black Days later, news of the alleged assault reached the Montgomery offices of the NAACP and they responded by sending along an investigator, Rosa Parks. In 1940s Alabama, segregationist laws and Born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Ala., Rosa Louise McCauley eventually moved to Montgomery where she married Raymond Parks, a barber who was deeply involved in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1943, Rosa Parks was elected secretary of the NAACP’s Montgomery chapter, setting in motion her lifelong “Such a good job of brain washing was done on the Negro that a militant Negro was almost a freak of nature to them, many times ridiculed by others of his own group.” —Rosa Parks Raymond became a member of the Montgomery NAACP in 1934, though in time he would grow disillusioned with the organization’s Rosa Parks' Bus . In 1955, African Americans were still required by a Montgomery, Alabama, city ordinance to sit in the back half of city buses and to yield their seats to white riders if the In 1932, at age 19, Rosa met and married Raymond Parks, a barber and an active member of the NAACP as well as the League of Women Voters. The couple never had children, and their marriage lasted Rosa Parks was a significant figure in the civil rights movement and worked closely with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Detroit. As an active member of the local NAACP chapter, she played a crucial role in civil rights activism, particularly in responding to her own arrest on charges of violating Rosa Parks’ local work was already making a difference when her bold decision on a Montgomery bus made her famous across the country. Her arrest on December 1, 1955, for not giving up her seat to a white person, marked a turning point.
Articles and news, personal stories, interviews with experts.
Photos from events, contest for the best costume, videos from master classes.