Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks (1913-2005), a tired seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama made an understandable and stubborn refusal to give her seat up to a white passenger on the bus on December 1, 1955, which changed the dynamics of civil rights. The white bus driver informed her that she was going to get arrest, and she graciously and courageously complied. Parks was arrested, fined for violating a city ordinance, and later outlawed racial segregation on public transportation. A seemingly stubborn defiance began the course of equality on buses. This incident led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., boycotting the bus, which lasted 382 days, attracting the attention of segregation and forcing change. History portrays Rosa Parks as a determined woman who's acts or, technically, lack of changed history, but she's done more for equality than refusal to move. She served as secretary of the NAACP and Adviser to the NAACP Youth Council and tried to register to vote a number of times when it was nearly impossible.