Rosa Parks quiet refusal ignited change

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, and her arrest sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a pivotal event that led to the desegregation of the city’s buses and became a landmark moment in the Civil Rights Movement.

Widely recognized as the “mother of the civil rights movement,” Parks continued her activism for the rest of her life, until her death in 2005.

She received numerous honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999.