Revered as a civil rights icon, Rosa Parks is best known for sparking the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, but her activism in the Black community predates that day.She joined the National Association Before the Bus, Rosa Parks Was a Sexual Assault Investigator. Rosa Parks's Life After the Boycott. Facing continued harassment and threats in the wake of the boycott, Parks, along with her Rosa Parks is best known for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, which sparked a yearlong boycott that was a turning point in the civil rights 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 AMY GOODMAN: That was Rosa Parks speaking in April 1956 in the midst of the Montgomery bus boycott. She had refused to stand up for a white passenger just a few months before, December 1st, 1955. 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’ Life After the Montgomery Bus Boycott In 1987, a decade after her husband’s death, Parks founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development with longtime friend 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 Rosa Parks waves from a United Air Lines jetway in Seattle, Washington, one of many trips she took to raise money and awarness for the bus boycott. Gil Baker, 1956. In September 2014, the Library of Congress received a remarkable 10-year loan of the Rosa Parks Collection. The National City Lines bus, No. 2857, on which Rosa Parks rode before she was arrested (a GM "old-look" transit bus, serial number 1132), is now on exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum. On the night of Parks' arrest, the Women's Political Council , led by Jo Ann Robinson , printed and circulated a flyer throughout Montgomery's black community that 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. Montgomery bus boycott, mass protest against the bus system of Montgomery, Alabama, by civil rights activists and their supporters that led to a 1956 U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring that Montgomery’s segregation laws on buses were unconstitutional. The boycott was led by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. 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. Before she became a nationally admired civil rights icon, Rosa Parks’ life consisted of ups and downs that included struggles to support her family and taking new paths in activism. In Stride Toward Freedom, King’s 1958 memoir of the boycott, he declared the real meaning of the Montgomery bus boycott to be the power of a growing self-respect to animate the struggle for civil rights. The roots of the bus boycott began years before the arrest of Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks, the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement" was one of the most important citizens of the 20th century. Mrs. Parks was a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama when, in December of 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. The bus driver had her arrested. She was tried and convicted of violating a local ordinance. Her act sparked a citywide boycott of the Rosa Parks became an iconic figure in the fight against racial discrimination when she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. This act of defiance was more than just a refusal to move; it was a statement against the unjust laws of segregation that plagued the American South. Her arrest was the catalyst for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a pivotal The Bus Boycott “During the Montgomery bus boycott, we came together and remained unified for 381 days. It has never been done again. The Montgomery boycott became the model for human rights throughout the world.” When Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man, she was mentally prepared Episode 9, Season 3 Everyone thinks they know the story, but the real history of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott is even better. This episode details the events that set the stage for Ms. Parks’ civil disobedience. You’ll meet the leaders and organizations who transformed a moment of activism into a 13-month campaign. And you’ll learn about the community that held fast in the Introduction. On December 1, 1955, a tired Rosa Parks left work as a department store tailor’s assistant and planned to ride home on a city bus.
Articles and news, personal stories, interviews with experts.
Photos from events, contest for the best costume, videos from master classes.
![]() | ![]() |
![]() | |
![]() | ![]() |
![]() | ![]() |
![]() | |
![]() | ![]() |