Rosa Parks

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American civil rights activist. She is best known for her 1955 refusal to move from her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in defiance of Jim Crow racial segregation laws, which sparked the Montgomery bus boycott. She is sometimes known as the "mother of the civil rights movement".

Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, Parks grew up under Jim Crow segregation. She later moved to Montgomery and joined the city's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1943, serving as the organization's secretary. Despite policies designed to disenfranchise Black citizens, Parks successfully registered to vote after three separate attempts between 1943 and 1945. She investigated cases and organized campaigns around cases of racial and sexual violence in her capacity as NAACP secretary, including those of Recy Taylor and Jeremiah Reeves, laying the groundwork for future civil rights campaigns.

Custom in Montgomery required Black passengers to surrender their seats in the front of the bus to accommodate white riders. The rows in the back were designated for Black riders. Before Parks's refusal to move, several Black Montgomerians had refused to do so, including 15-year-old high school student Claudette Colvin, leading to arrests. When Parks was arrested in 1955, local leaders were searching for a person who would be a good legal test case against segregation. She was deemed a suitable candidate, and the Women's Political Council (WPC) organized a one-day bus boycott on the day of her trial. The boycott was widespread. Many Black Montgomerians refused to ride the buses that day. After Parks was found guilty of violating state law, the boycott was extended indefinitely, with the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) organizing its own community transportation network to sustain it. Parks and other boycott leaders faced harassment, ostracization, and various legal obstacles. The boycott lasted for 381 days, finally concluding after segregation on buses was deemed unconstitutional in the court case Browder v. Gayle.

After the boycott ended, Parks experienced financial hardship and health problems due, in part, to her participation. In 1957, she relocated to Detroit, Michigan. She continued to advocate for civil rights, supporting people such as John Conyers, Joanne Little, Gary Tyler, Angela Davis, Joe Madison, and Nelson Mandela. She was also a supporter of the Black power movement and an anti-apartheid activist, participating in protests and conferences as part of the Free South Africa Movement. In 1987, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development with Elaine Eason Steele. After Parks's death in 2005, she was honored with public viewings and memorial services in three cities: in Montgomery; in Washington, D.C., where she lay in state at the United States Capitol rotunda; and in Detroit, where she was ultimately interred at Woodlawn Cemetery. Parks received many awards and honors, both throughout her life and posthumously. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Congressional Gold Medal and was the first Black American to be memorialized in the National Statuary Hall.