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. 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 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 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. The actual bus on which Rosa Parks sat was made available for the public to board and sit in the seat that Rosa Parks refused to give up. [ 153 ] On February 4, 2,000 birthday wishes gathered from people throughout the United States were transformed into 200 graphics messages at a celebration held on her 100th Birthday at the Davis Theater for 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. Rosa Parks Arrested. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for disorderly conduct for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. Civil Rights leader E. D. Nixon bailed her out of jail, joined by white friends Clifford Durr, an attorney, and his wife, Virginia. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of going to the back of the bus, which was designated for African Americans, she sat in the front. When the bus started to fill up with white passengers, the bus driver asked Parks to move. She refused. 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 Activist Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott that partially ended racial segregation. Members of the Black community were asked to stay off city buses on Monday, December 5, 1955 That spark came on December 1, 1955, when 42-year-old Rosa Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus after a long day at her tailoring job at Montgomery Fair department store. Parks was no ordinary citizen; she was the secretary of the Montgomery NAACP and had attended trainings on civil disobedience at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. Rosa Parks Arrested. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for disorderly conduct for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. Civil Rights leader E. D. Nixon bailed her out of jail, joined by white friends Clifford Durr, an attorney, and his wife, Virginia. 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. On October 24, 2005, Rosa Parks, a key figure in the American civil rights movement, passed away at the age of 92 in Detroit, Michigan. Parks is best remembered for her courageous act of defiance in 1955, when she refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. This small but powerful gesture sparked the Montgomery Bus Activist Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott that partially ended racial segregation. Members of the Black community were asked to stay off city buses on Monday, December 5, 1955 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. February is Black History Month, and today marks the 108th anniversary of the birth of Rosa Parks. Famously, on December 1, 1955, Parks became the catalyst of the Montgomery Bus Boycott after refusing to move to the “colored” section in the back of a public bus. On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks was returning from work when she boarded the bus. America was a nation in which racial segregation was not only prevelant, but had been given legal blessing. African Americans were obliged to travel at the back of Alabama buses and Rosa, dutifully, walked down the bus to sit in the area allowed for passengers who 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. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African-American seamstress, refused to give up her seat to a white man while riding on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. For doing this, Parks was arrested and fined for breaking the laws of segregation.
Articles and news, personal stories, interviews with experts.
Photos from events, contest for the best costume, videos from master classes.