Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Ala., and became an iconic symbol of the Civil Rights Movement in the 50s after she refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Ala., to a white man.
Here are some facts about Parks and the movement:
1. Parks wasn't the first. Fifteen-year-old civil rights activist Claudette Colvin came before Parks in making news for being dragged off a bus and jailed for not giving up her seat, but she was pregnant at the time and the NAACP didn't think she could get the support of conservatives to spark a movement. That's where Rosa Parks came in.
2. She was an activist. Parks was a seamstress by trade, but was deeply active in the NAACP andMontgomery Improvement Association, working to improve civil rights in her community. Her Dec. 1 action of refusing to give her seat in the black section of the bus to a white man was calculated, but not planned for that time. "I got on it to go home," Parks has said. …show more content…
22, 1956 photo, Rosa Parks is fingerprinted
In this Feb. 22, 1956 photo, Rosa Parks is fingerprinted by police Lt. D.H. Lackey in Montgomery, Ala. She was among some 100 people charged with violating segregation laws. (Photo: Gene Herrick, AP)
3. Parks knew the bus driver.The driver was James Blake, who had a reputation for treating black passengers without dignity. More than a decade earlier, Blake stopped Parks from entering the front of the bus, telling her to use the back entrance, then sped away before she got on.
Rosa Parks riding on the Montgomery Area Transit