Contrary to popular belief, Rosa Parks was not the first woman to be arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Alabama bus. That distinction goes to Claudette Colvin, a teenager who lived and attended high school in Montgomery. read more
Rosa Parks first came to national notice in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. She was chosen to be the face of the civil rights movement largely due to the fact she was the secretary of the NAACP in Montgomery, and was otherwise active in local activism. read more
Parks, Rosa Rosa Parks, being fingerprinted in Montgomery, Alabama, December 1, 1955. Everett Collection Inc./AGE fotostock In 1957 Parks moved with her husband and mother to Detroit, where from 1965 to 1988 she was a member of the staff of Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Jr. read more
By refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus in 1955, black seamstress Rosa Parks (1913—2005) helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States. The leaders of the local black community organized a bus boycott that began the day Parks was convicted of violating the segregation laws. read more