Rosa Parks

About

Rosa Parks was a pivotal figure in the American Civil Rights Movement. Born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama, she grew up facing racial discrimination and violence. Parks became active in civil rights early on, joining the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP in 1943 and serving as its secretary. She also founded the Montgomery NAACP Youth Council. Her education included attending the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls and briefly enrolling at Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes. Parks is most famous for her courageous act on December 1, 1955, when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This event led to the desegregation of public buses in Montgomery. Despite facing challenges, including job loss and death threats, Parks continued her activism. She moved to Detroit in 1957 and remained active in civil rights, working for Congressman John Conyers and co-founding the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. Parks received numerous honors for her contributions, including the Congressional Gold Medal. She passed away on October 24, 2005, leaving a legacy as "the mother of the civil rights movement."