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 called Malcolm X her hero, and they interacted several times during the American civil rights movement. Rosa Parks was a lifelong activist, as was her husband. Rosa Parks was not the first black woman to refuse to move from her bus seat; Claudette Colvin had done the same nine months earlier, and countless women had before that. Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. As an African American in Alabama, she had to live with segregation, which means laws kept Black and white people separate from each other. Rosa married Raymond Parks in 1932. Her autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story, appeared in 1992. Parks was the recipient of two of the U.S. government’s most prestigious civilian honors—the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1996) and the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor (1999)—for her contributions to the civil rights movement. Parks died on October 24, 2005, in Detroit. Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy. On the evening of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African American seamstress and civil rights activist living in Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested for refusing to obey a bus driver who had ordered her and three other African American passengers to vacate their seats to make room for a white passenger who had just boarded. FULL NAME: Rosa Louise McCauley Parks BORN: February 4, 1913 DIED: October 24, 2005 BIRTHPLACE: Tuskegee, Alabama SPOUSE: Raymond Parks (1932-1977) ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aquarius Childhood, Family Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. As an African American in Alabama, she had to live with segregation, which means laws kept Black and white people separate from each other. Montgomery is the state capital of Alabama. A number of important events connected to the civil rights movement happened Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913, to Leona (née Edwards), a teacher, and James McCauley, a carpenter.In addition to African ancestry, one of Parks's great-grandfathers was Scots-Irish, and one of her great-grandmothers was a part–Native American slave. Unfortunately, Parks was forced to withdraw after her grandmother became ill. Growing up in the segregated South, Parks was frequently confronted with racial discrimination and violence. She became active in the Civil Rights Movement at a young age. Parks married a local barber by the name of Raymond Parks when she was 19. rosa louise parks biography Rosa Louise Parks was nationally recognized as the “mother of the modern day civil rights movement” in America. Her refusal to surrender her seat to a white male passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, December 1, 1955, triggered a wave of protest December 5, 1955 that reverberated throughout the United States. Claudette Colvin is an American woman who was arrested as a teenager in 1955 for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white woman. Her protest was one of several by Black women challenging segregation on buses in the months before Rosa Parks’s more famous act. Rosa Parks was an American civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her seat on a public bus precipitated the 1955–56 Montg Search Britannica Click here to search Search Britannica Click here to search Rosa Parks (1913—2005) helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions Details about Lampkin’s early life remain vague, and accounts vary as to her birthplace and year of birth. She was the only child of George and Rosa Adams. After attending high school in Reading, Pennsylvania, she moved to Pittsburgh in 1909 and married restaurant owner William Lampkin in 1912. The couple raised one child, their goddaughter Rosa Parks. Email; Back to Article; Related resources for this article. Articles Websites View search results for: ©2025 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Rosa Parks is fingerprinted in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955. She was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man. Parks's action led to the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott, which is recognized as the spark that ignited the U.S. civil rights movement. Angela Bassett is an American actress best known for portraying Black women who made history, including singer Tina Turner and civil rights activists Rosa Parks and Betty Shabazz, the wife of African American leader Malcolm X. Bassett was born in New York, New York, and raised by an aunt in Vincent Lingiari was an Australian livestock worker and activist who fought for Aboriginal land rights. He is best known for leading the 1966 strike of Aboriginal workers at the Wave Hill cattle station in the Northern Territory, Australia. Government sources list Lingiari’s birth year as 1919, but Who Was Rosa Parks? Rosa Parks, born in February 1913, was a pivotal figure in the American civil rights movement. Her courageous decision to refuse to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in December 1955, sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a significant event in the struggle against racial segregation. DECEMBER 01 1955 Rosa Parks takes a seat in Alabama Her arrest after refusing to relinquish her seat to a white passenger sparks a year-long bus boycott, turning Parks into a civil rights icon. DECEMBER 03 1967 First successful human heart transplant South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard and a team of 20 doctors complete the complex
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