Rosa Parks

Biography

Parks was no accidental heroine: an experienced organiser who knew exactly what her arrest would set in motion. The 381-day boycott she ignited launched Martin Luther King Jr. nationally — and Parks kept working for justice in Detroit for another half-century.

American civil rights activist whose quiet refusal on a segregated bus ignited the Montgomery bus boycott.

Known for

Her 1955 refusal to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama.

Notable works & defining projects

• Montgomery bus boycott (sparked 1955)
• NAACP Montgomery chapter
• Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute (co-founded)

Notable achievements

• Her arrest in December 1955 sparked the 381-day Montgomery bus boycott
• The U.S. Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional in 1956
• Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1996) and the Congressional Gold Medal (1999)

Timeline

1. 1943Joined the Montgomery NAACP and began voter-registration work
2. 1955Arrested on 1 December for refusing to surrender her bus seat
3. 1956The Supreme Court upheld the ruling that bus segregation was unconstitutional

Did you know?

• She was secretary of the Montgomery NAACP chapter and had trained in nonviolent protest at the Highlander Folk School before her arrest
• In 2005 she became the first woman in American history to lie in honour in the U.S. Capitol rotunda