Rosa Parks who was born in Tuskegee, Alabama fought for racial equality. On December 1, 1955 Parks was arrested, because she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. This brought many people’s attention including Martin Luther King Jr. They decided to boycott and not ride any buses until they had the right to sit wherever they would like. On December 5, 1955 many people did not ride the bus. They walked or got other transportation that was available for them. On November 3, 1956 the boycott finally worked, it took about three hundred and eighty …show more content…
The Spingarn Medal was awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored people for doing an amazing achievement for African Americans. The next year Parks was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Award, and three years later she was enlisted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame. On September 9, 1996 Bill Clinton presented Rosa Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest honor that can be presented on a civilian by the United States Government. In 1999 Parks was awarded with the Congressional Gold Medal. That same year she was given the Detroit-Windsor International Freedom Festival Freedom Award, she was also named as one of the top twenty most powerful and influential figures of the century. On October 27, 2005 Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was the second black person and first women to have the honor of lying in state in the Nation's Capitol. A year after her death President George W. Bush placed a statue of Rosa Parks in the National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. Bush said “By placing her statue in the heart of the Nation’s Capitol, we commemorate her work for a more perfect union, and we commit ourselves to continue to struggle for justice for every American.”
Among all her prestigious awards, Rosa Parks fought for equality and she inspired millions. Seen as the mother of activist Rosa Parks initiated the Civil Rights movement