Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913. She was the daughter of James and Leona Edwards. Her parents were a part of the majority African-American community that lived on the north side of town, but they had to go to schools and businesses that were located on the south side—the white side of town. Rosa’s father worked as a carpenter and her mother was a schoolteacher.
Mrs. Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person on December 1, 1955. The Montgomery Bus Boycott began 381 days later on December 5, 1955 when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery city bus to a white man who boarded the bus after she had already paid her fare.
The boycott ended 381 days later on December 20, 1956 after the United States Supreme Court ruled that Montgomery’s segregation laws on buses were unconstitutional. Mrs. Parks became an icon for civil rights because she refused to give up her seat and because she didn’t get off the bus when asked by the driver or police officers who showed up at.
