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 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. When Rosa passed away on October 24, 2005, at the age of 92, people around the world mourned her loss. Her body lay in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, an honor reserved for only a few great Americans. Why Rosa Parks Matters. Rosa Parks’ story is a reminder that courage doesn’t always come with loud speeches or grand gestures. When the bus started to fill up with white passengers, the bus driver asked Parks to move. She refused. Her resistance set in motion one of the largest social movements in history, the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Louise McCauley was born on February 4th, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. Today marks the anniversary of Rosa Parks’ decision to sit down for her rights on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, putting the effort to end segregation on a fast track. Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, after she refused to give up her seat on a crowded bus to a white passenger. Rosa Parks’ Life After the Montgomery Bus Boycott; The Rosa Parks Story, was released in 2002. The movie won the 2003 NAACP Image Award, Christopher Award, and Black Reel Award. Montgomery bus driver James Blake ordered Parks and three other African Americans seated nearby to move ("Move y'all, I want those two seats,") to the back of the bus. Three riders complied; Parks did not. The following excerpt of what happened next is from Douglas Brinkley's 2000 Rosa Park's biography. 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 On December 1, 1955, during a typical evening rush hour in Montgomery, Alabama, a 42-year-old woman took a seat on the bus on her way home from the Montgomery Fair department store where she worked as a seamstress. Before she reached her destination, she quietly set off a social revolution when the bus driver instructed her to move back, and she refused. Rosa Parks, an African American, was In Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city’s racial segregation laws. Sparking a Social Transformation. It’s one of the most famous moments in modern American civil rights history: On the chilly evening of December 1, 1955, at a bus stop on a busy street in the capital of Alabama, a 42-year-old seamstress boarded a segregated city bus to return home after a long day of work, taking a seat near the middle, just behind the front “white” section. In 1992, Parks published Rosa Parks: My Story, an autobiography aimed at younger readers, which recounts her life leading to her decision to keep her seat on the bus. A few years later, she published Quiet Strength (1995), her memoir, which focuses on her faith. Y ou probably think you know the story of Rosa Parks, the seamstress who refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Ala., 60 years ago—on Dec. 1, 1955—and thus galvanized the bus There, when a woman called Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, a bus journey became very important. Rosa's refusal was a protest about racism against black people. 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. 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 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 On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, who worked as a seamstress, boarded a Montgomery City bus on her way home from work. Due to the first 10 seats reserved for whites, Rosa sat near the middle of the bus, which were designated for "colored" passengers. Montgomery’s boycott was not entirely spontaneous, and Rosa Parks and other activists had prepared to challenge segregation long in advance. On December 1, 1955, a tired Rosa L. Parks left the department store where she worked as a tailor’s assistant and boarded a crowded city bus for the ride home. It’s the story of the Rosa Parks bus—bus number 2857. The story of how the bus got from a factory in Pontiac, Michigan, to the streets of Montgomery, Alabama, to a mechanic’s field outside of Montgomery, and finally to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, has some surprising twists and turns.
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