Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913. She was a civil rights activist who became famous for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person on December 1, 1955.
The boycott started on December 1, 1955 and lasted for 381 days. The Supreme Court ruled that segregation on buses was unconstitutional on December 20th 1956, ending the boycott. It’s estimated that more than 43 million African Americans participated in the boycott by not riding the buses!
In 1961 Rosa Parks helped found the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which she served as secretary until 1968. She also served as president of MIA from 1970-74 and again from 1977-79. In 2005 she received the Congressional Gold Medal from President George W Bush and then-Senator Barack Obama awarded her with an honorary doctorate degree from Tuskegee University in 2007.
