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 (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' 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 (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. 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. 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. Whilst Rosa Parks wasn’t the first person to make a stand against this treatment; she remains on the key figures of the Civil Rights Movement because of what she did that day; and what came from it. December 1st, 2015 marks 60 years since the arrest of Rosa Parks and the spark of a movement that changed history and the world we know today. Born in February 1913, Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in 1955 led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. 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 (1913-2005) helped start the civil rights movement in the United States in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Rosa Parks’s actions inspired leaders of the Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Dr. Martin Luther King led the Montgomery Bus Rosa Parks: Bus Boycott, Civil Rights & Facts Read More » A plaque entitled "The Bus Stop" at Dexter Avenue and Montgomery Street – where Parks boarded the bus – pays tribute to her and the success of the Montgomery bus boycott. The No. 2857 bus on which Parks was riding before her arrest (a GM "old-look" transit bus , serial number 1132) is now a museum exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum . 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 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Alabama for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. Discover how her act of defiance sparked the US civil rights movement. In fact, the young people from the center participated in the 40th anniversary of the historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, where they visited the bus stop where Rosa Parks protested and dared not to get up, and also the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church where Dr. King preached. Rosa Parks Rosa Parks was a black woman, who played an important part in the American Civil Rights movement. She made changes to try to make life fair for black and white people in America. Early Life Rosa Parks was born on 4th February, 1913 and grew up on a farm with her mother, brother and grandparents in a place called Montgomery in the USA. 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. Rosa L. Parks. I had left my work at the men’s alteration shop, a tailor shop in the Montgomery Fair department store, and as I left work, I crossed the street to a drugstore to pick up a few items instead of trying to go directly to the bus stop. When that section filled, the next row back was supposed to become part of the white section and any non-white person was supposed to move back. So one white man boards and three people move to the back. Rosa Parks did not. It could have been brushed over. But the charges filed caused the boycott. The bus system was going to start something anyway. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, a Black woman named Rosa Parks finished her work day and caught a bus home. Segregation was the law of the land in Montgomery, so while the front of the bus was available to white citizens, Black people had to go to the back. 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.
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