Difference between revisions of "Rosa Parks"
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Revision as of 16:25, March 24, 2007
Rosa Parks (1913-2005) was a black civil rights activist. She is most famous for her arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus for a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955. (At the time, white passengers were given priority seating.) For refusing to give up her seat, Parks was convicted of disorderly conduct and fined $14. [1] This arrest led to a boycott of the Montgomery public bus system that lasted over a year, and culminated in the reversal of the seating policy. The incident is considered to be a landmark event in the Civil Rights Movement.
The bus incident was not Parks' first foray into civil rights activism. Prior to this, she had served as a secretary for the NAACP, and she recounted in an interview that she had experienced past confrontations with bus drivers. [2]
In 1998, President Clinton awarded Parks the Congressional Gold Medal, which is the highest honor that can be given to an American civilian. [3]
Parks was a devout Christian who credited her faith in God with giving her the strength to resist the law that would have required her to give up her bus seat. [4]
