| Rosa Parks |
|
Parks, Rosa Lee, 1913-, American civil-rights activist, b. Tuskegee, Ala. A seamstress and long-time member of the Montgomery, Ala., chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), her Dec. 1, 1955, refusal to give up a seat on a municipal bus to a white man provided the impetus for the Montgomery bus boycott. This successful protest, which lasted just over a year, marked the emergence of Martin Luther King, Jr., to national prominence as a civil-rights leader and fixed the model for future nonviolent movement actions. In 1957, Parks moved to Detroit, where she remained active in the civil-rights movement. She was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress's highest honor, in 1999. source: http://www.historychannel.com/perl/print_book.pl?ID=105878 |