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. Civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, sparking the transformational Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement, best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement". Rosa Parks, born Rosa Louise McCauley on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama, is celebrated as a pivotal figure in the American civil rights movement. Her most notable act of defiance occurred on December 1, 1955, when she refused to yield her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. 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 Parks work proved to be invaluable in Detroit’s Civil Rights Movement. She was an active member of several organizations which worked to end inequality in the city. By 1980, after consistently giving to the movement both financially and physically Parks, now widowed, suffered from financial and health troubles. April 14, 2005: Parks and the hip-hop group Outkast reach an out-of-court settlement regarding their 1998 song "Rosa Parks." October 24, 2005: Parks dies at the age of 92 The activist’s refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Alabama helped fuel the Civil Rights Movement. Rosa Parks smiles during a ceremony where she received the The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute Of Self-Development was established in 1987 to offer job training for black youth. In 1999, Parks received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, the highest honor a civilian can receive in the United States. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) also sponsors an annual Rosa Parks Freedom Award. Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913–October 24, 2005) was a civil rights activist in Alabama when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white person: her case touched off the Montgomery Bus Boycott and was a significant milestone in forcing the Supreme Court to end segregation. Students will analyze Rosa Parks' evolving activism during the Black Freedom Movement using primary source sets created from the Library of Congress exhibit "Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words.” Students will use the evolving hypothesis strategy to answer the focus question. Rosa Parks occupies an iconic status in the civil rights movement after she refused to vacate a seat on a bus in favor of a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1955, Parks rejected a bus driver's order to leave a row of four seats in the "colored" section once the white section had filled up and move to the back of the bus. Rosa Parks is often remembered as the quiet seamstress who ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Yet, her history as an advocate against sexual violence is often overlooked. Parks’ work demonstrates how the fight against sexual violence is inseparably linked to the fight against systemic oppression, particularly racism, sexism, and misogynoir. Biographer Jeanne Theoharis, professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, describes in this article written for the Library of Congress Magazine, vol. 4 no. 2 (March-April 2015):16-18, the recently acquired Rosa Parks Papers and how they shed new light on Parks and her activism. On how, in addition to civil rights and voting rights, Parks was also an anti-rape activist. Rosa Parks, like many black women, was doing domestic work in her late teens. She's working for a white In 1931, Rosa McCauley met and fell in love with a politically-active barber, Raymond Parks — the “first real activist I ever met.” When they began seeing each other, Raymond was working to free the Scottsboro boys, nine young men picked up for riding the rails, wrongly accused of rape, and sentenced to death in 1931 Alabama. But Rosa Parks is much more than that. "Most Americans are only familiar with the event that occurred on Dec. 1, 1955," says David Canton, associate professor of history and director of the Africana Studies Program at Connecticut College. "However, Rosa Parks was an activist years before the Montgomery Bus Boycott and years after." The Rosa Parks I interviewed was eager to discuss her activist career and how her historic arrest was anchored in a pattern of resistance. Narratives of “spontaneity” and claims suggesting she was befuddled as to why her act was so consequential are incorrect. On a chilly day in 1955, an unremarkable scene unfolded in Alabama that would change American history. Aboard a segregated bus, seamstress Rosa Parks was told to surrender her seat so a white man could sit down. Hillary Clinton's campaign celebrates Rosa Parks as a civil rights activist hero. She was going home from work as a seamstress at a downtown department store and was tired all over, she
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