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Who was Rosa Parks?

Why is rosa parks important, was rosa parks the first black woman to refuse to give up her seat on a segregated bus.

• When did the American civil rights movement start?

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• Blackpast.org - Biography of Rosa Parks
• PBS LearningMedia - Rosa Parks
• The Henry Ford - Rosa Parks: What if I Don’t Move to the Back of the Bus?
• National Women's History Museum - Rosa Parks
• Encyclopedia of Alabama - Rosa Parks
• The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute - Rosa Parks
• Spartacus Educational - Biography of Rosa Parks
• Bill of Rights Institute - Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
• National Archives - An Act of Courage, The Arrest Records of Rosa Parks
• Academy of Achievement - Rosa Parks
• Rosa Parks - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• Rosa Parks - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Rosa Parks was an American civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her seat on a public bus precipitated the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama, which became the spark that ignited the civil rights movement in the United States . She is known as the “mother of the civil rights movement.”

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus for white passengers in 1955, she was arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation ordinances. Her action sparked the Montgomery bus boycott , led by the Montgomery Improvement Association and Martin Luther King, Jr. , that eventually succeeded in achieving desegregation of the city buses. The boycott also helped give rise to the American civil rights movement .

Rosa Parks was not the first Black woman to refuse to give up her seat on a segregated bus, though her story attracted the most attention nationwide. Nine months before Parks, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin had refused to give up her bus seat, as had dozens of other Black women throughout the history of segregated public transit.

What did Rosa Parks write?

In 1992 Rosa Parks published Rosa Parks: My Story , an autobiography written with Jim Haskins that described her role in the American civil rights movement , beyond her refusal to give up her seat on a segregated public bus to white passengers.

Rosa Parks (born February 4, 1913, Tuskegee , Alabama , U.S.—died October 24, 2005, Detroit , Michigan) was an American civil rights activist whose refusal to relinquish her seat on a public bus precipitated the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama, which became the spark that ignited the civil rights movement in the United States .

Born to parents James McCauley, a skilled stonemason and carpenter, and Leona Edwards McCauley, a teacher, in Tuskegee, Alabama, Rosa Louise McCauley spent much of her childhood and youth ill with chronic tonsillitis . When she was two years old, shortly after the birth of her younger brother, Sylvester, her parents chose to separate. Estranged from their father from then on, the children moved with their mother to live on their maternal grandparents’ farm in Pine Level, Alabama, outside Montgomery. The children’s great-grandfather, a former indentured servant , also lived there; he died when Rosa was six.

For much of her childhood, Rosa was educated at home by her mother, who also worked as a teacher at a nearby school. Rosa helped with chores on the farm and learned to cook and sew. Farm life, though, was less than idyllic . The Ku Klux Klan was a constant threat, as she later recalled, “ burning Negro churches, schools, flogging and killing ” Black families. Rosa’s grandfather would often keep watch at night, rifle in hand, awaiting a mob of violent white men. The house’s windows and doors were boarded shut with the family, frequently joined by Rosa’s widowed aunt and her five children, inside. On nights thought to be especially dangerous, the children would have to go to bed with their clothes on so that they would be ready if the family needed to escape. Sometimes Rosa would choose to stay awake and keep watch with her grandfather.

Rosa and her family experienced racism in less violent ways, too. When Rosa entered school in Pine Level, she had to attend a segregated establishment where one teacher was put in charge of about 50 or 60 schoolchildren. Though white children in the area were bused to their schools, Black children had to walk. Public transportation, drinking fountains, restaurants, and schools were all segregated under Jim Crow laws . At age 11 Rosa entered the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, where Black girls were taught regular school subjects alongside domestic skills. She went on to attend a Black junior high school for 9th grade and a Black teacher’s college for 10th and part of 11th grade. At age 16, however, she was forced to leave school because of an illness in the family, and she began cleaning the houses of white people.

In 1932, at age 19, Rosa married Raymond Parks, a barber and a civil rights activist, who encouraged her to return to high school and earn a diploma. She later made a living as a seamstress. In 1943 Rosa Parks became a member of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and she served as its secretary until 1956.

On December 1, 1955, Parks was riding a crowded Montgomery city bus when the driver, upon noticing that there were white passengers standing in the aisle, asked Parks and other Black passengers to surrender their seats and stand. Three of the passengers left their seats, but Parks refused. She was subsequently arrested and fined $10 for the offense and $4 for court costs, neither of which she paid. Instead, she accepted Montgomery NAACP chapter president E.D. Nixon’s offer to help her appeal the conviction and thus challenge legal segregation in Alabama. Both Parks and Nixon knew that they were opening themselves to harassment and death threats, but they also knew that the case had the potential to spark national outrage. Under the aegis of the Montgomery Improvement Association —led by the young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Martin Luther King, Jr. —a boycott of the municipal bus company began on December 5. African Americans constituted some 70 percent of the ridership, and the absence of their bus fares cut deeply into revenue. The boycott lasted 381 days, and even people outside Montgomery embraced the cause: protests of segregated restaurants, pools, and other public facilities took place all over the United States. On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision declaring Montgomery’s segregated bus seating unconstitutional, and a court order to integrate the buses was served on December 20; the boycott ended the following day. For her role in igniting the successful campaign, Parks became known as the “mother of the civil rights movement.”

Simplifications of Parks’s story claimed that she had refused to give up her bus seat because she was tired rather than because she was protesting unfair treatment. But she was an accomplished activist by the time of her arrest, having worked with the NAACP on other civil rights cases, such as that of the Scottsboro Boys , nine Black youths falsely accused of sexually assaulting two white women. According to Parks’s autobiography, “I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was 42. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” Parks was not the first Black woman to refuse to give up her bus seat for a white person—15-year-old Claudette Colvin had been arrested for the same offense nine months earlier, and dozens of other Black women had preceded them in the history of segregated public transit . However, as secretary of the local NAACP, and with the Montgomery Improvement Association behind her, Parks had access to resources and publicity that those other women had not had. It was her case that forced the city of Montgomery to desegregate city buses permanently.

In 1957 Parks moved with her husband and mother to Detroit, where from 1965 to 1988 she worked on the staff of Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Jr. She remained active in the NAACP, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference established an annual Rosa Parks Freedom Award in her honour. In 1987 she cofounded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development to provide career training for young people and offer teenagers the opportunity to learn about the history of the civil rights movement. She received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1996) and the Congressional Gold Medal (1999). Her autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story (1992), was written with Jim Haskins.

Though achieving the desegregation of Montgomery’s city buses was an incredible feat, Parks was not satisfied with that victory. She saw that the United States was still failing to respect and protect the lives of Black Americans. Martin Luther King, Jr., who had been brought to national attention by his organization of the Montgomery bus boycott , was assassinated less than a decade after Parks’s case was won. Biographer Kathleen Tracy noted that Parks, in one of her last interviews, would not quite say that she was happy: “I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I don’t think there is any such thing as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say you’re happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I haven’t reached that stage yet.”

After Parks died in 2005, her body lay in state in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol , an honour reserved for private citizens who performed a great service for their country. For two days mourners visited her casket and gave thanks for her dedication to civil rights. Parks was the first woman and only the second Black person to receive the distinction.

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ROSA LOUISE PARKS BIOGRAPHY

Rosa Louise Parks was nationally recognized as the “mother of the modern day civil rights movement” in America. Her refusal to surrender her seat to a white male passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, December 1, 1955, triggered a wave of protest December 5, 1955 that reverberated throughout the United States. Her quiet courageous act changed America, its view of black people and redirected the course of history.

Mrs. Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley, February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. She was the first child of James and Leona Edwards McCauley. Her brother, Sylvester McCauley, now deceased, was born August 20, 1915. Later, the family moved to Pine Level, Alabama where Rosa was reared and educated in the rural school. When she completed her education in Pine Level at age eleven, her mother, Leona, enrolled her in Montgomery Industrial School for Girls (Miss White’s School for Girls), a private institution. After finishing Miss White’s School, she went on to Alabama State Teacher’s College High School. She, however, was unable to graduate with her class, because of the illness of her grandmother Rose Edwards and later her death.

As Rosa Parks prepared to return to Alabama State Teacher’s College, her mother also became ill, therefore, she continued to take care of their home and care for her mother while her brother, Sylvester, worked outside of the home. She received her high school diploma in 1934, after her marriage to Raymond Parks, December 18, 1932. Raymond, now deceased was born in Wedowee, Alabama, Randolph County, February 12, 1903, received little formal education due to racial segregation. He was a self-educated person with the assistance of his mother, Geri Parks. His immaculate dress and his thorough knowledge of domestic affairs and current events made most think he was college educated. He supported and encouraged Rosa’s desire to complete her formal education.

Mr. Parks was an early activist in the effort to free the “Scottsboro Boys,” a celebrated case in the 1930′s. Together, Raymond and Rosa worked in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP’s) programs. He was an active member and she served as secretary and later youth leader of the local branch. At the time of her arrest, she was preparing for a major youth conference.

After the arrest of Rosa Parks, black people of Montgomery and sympathizers of other races organized and promoted a boycott of the city bus line that lasted 381 days. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was appointed the spokesperson for the Bus Boycott and taught nonviolence to all participants. Contingent with the protest in Montgomery, others took shape throughout the south and the country. They took form as sit-ins, eat-ins, swim-ins, and similar causes. Thousands of courageous people joined the “protest” to demand equal rights for all people.

Mrs. Parks moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1957. In 1964 she became a deaconess in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME).

Congressman John Conyers First Congressional District of Michigan employed Mrs. Parks, from 1965 to 1988. In February, 1987, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development with Ms. Elaine Eason Steele in honor of her husband, Raymond (1903-1977). The purpose is to motivate and direct youth not targeted by other programs to achieve their highest potential. Rosa Parks sees the energy of young people as a real force for change. It is among her most treasured themes of human priorities as she speaks to young people of all ages at schools, colleges, and national organizations around the world.

The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development’s “Pathways to Freedom program, traces the underground railroad into the civil rights movement and beyond. Youth, ages 11 through 17, meet and talk with Mrs. Parks and other national leaders as they participate in educational and historical research throughout the world. They journey primarily by bus as “freedom riders” did in the 1960′s,the theme: “Where have we been? Where are we going?”

As a role model for youth she was stimulated by their enthusiasm to learn as much about her life as possible. A modest person, she always encourages them to research the lives of other contributors to world peace. The Institute and The Rosa Parks Legacy are her legacies to people of good will.

Mrs. Parks received more than forty-three honorary doctorate degrees, including one from SOKA UNIVERSITY, Tokyo Japan, hundreds of plaques, certificates, citations, awards and keys to many cities. Among them are the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal, the UAW’s Social Justice Award, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Non – Violent Peace Prize and the ROSA PARKS PEACE PRIZE in 1994, Stockholm Sweden, to name a few. In September 1996 President William J. Clinton, the forty second President of the United States of America gave Mrs. Parks the MEDAL OF FREEDOM, the highest award given to a civilian citizen.

Published Act no.28 of 1997 designated the first Monday following February 4, as Mrs Rosa Parks’ Day in the state of Michigan, her home state. She is the first living person to be honored with a holiday.

She was voted by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most Influential people of the 20th century. A Museum and Library is being built in her honor, in Montgomery, AL and will open in the fall of the year 2000 (ground breaking April 21, 1998). On September 2, 1998 The Rosa L. Parks Learning Center was dedicated at Botsford Commons, a senior community in Michigan. Through the use of computer technology, youth will mentor seniors on the use of computers. (Mrs. Parks was a member of the first graduating class on November 24, 1998). On September 26, 1998 Mrs. Parks was the recipient of the first International Freedom Conductor’s Award by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

She attended her first “State of the Union Address” in January 1999. Mrs. Parks received a unanimous bipartisan standing ovation when President William Jefferson Clinton acknowledged her. Representative Julia Carson of Indianapolis, Indiana introduced H. R. Bill 573 on February 4, 1999, which would award Mrs. Rosa Parks the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor if it passed the House of Representatives and the Senate by a majority. The bill was passed unanimously in the Senate on April 19, and with one descenting vote in the House of Representatives on April 20. President Clinton signed it into law on May 3, 1999. Mrs. Parks was one of only 250 individuals at the time, including the American Red Cross to receive this honor. President George Washington was the first to receive the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor. President Nelson Mandela is also listed among the select few of world leaders who have received the medal.

In the winter of 2000 Mrs. Parks met Pope John-Paul II in St. Louis, MO and read a statement to him asking for racial healing. She received the NAACP Image Award for Best Supporting Actress in the Television series, TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, “Black like Monica”. Troy State University at Montgomery opened The Rosa Parks Library and Museum on the site where Mrs. Parks was arrested December 1, 1955. It opened on the 45th Anniversary of her arrest and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

“The Rosa Parks Story” was filmed in Montgomery, Alabama May 2001, an aired February 24, 2002 on the CBS television network. Mrs. Parks continues to receive numerous awards including the very first Lifetime Achievement Award ever given by The Institute for Research on Women & Gender, Stanford University. She received the Gandhi, King, Ikeda award for peace and on October 29, 2003 Mrs. Parks was an International Institute Heritage Hall of fame honoree. On February 4, 2004 Mrs. Parks 91st birthday was celebrated at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. On December 21, 2004 the 49th Anniversary of the Mrs. Parks’ arrest was commemorated with a Civil Rights and Hip-Hop Forum at the Franklin Settlement in Detroit, Michigan.

On February 4, 2005 Mrs. Parks’ 92nd birthday was celebrate at Calvary Baptist Church in Detroit, MI. Students from the Detroit Public Schools did “Willing to be Arrested,” a reenactment of Mrs. Parks arrest. February 6, 2005 Mrs. Parks received the first annual Cardinal Dearden Peace Award at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Detroit, MI. February 19 – 20, composer Hannibal Lokumbe premiered an original symphony “Dear Mrs. Parks.” Mr. Lokumbe did this original work as part of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s ” Classical Roots Series.” The beginning of many events that will commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Mrs. Parks’ arrest December 1, 1955.

Mrs. Parks has written four books, Rosa Parks: My Story: by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins, Quiet Strength by Rosa Parks with Gregory J. Reed, Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue With Today’s Youth by Rosa Parks with Gregory J, Reed, this book received the NAACP’s Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, (Children’s) in 1996 and her latest book, I AM ROSA PARKS by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins, for preschoolers.

A quiet exemplification of courage, dignity, and determination; Rosa Parks was a symbol to all to remain free. Rosa Parks made her peaceful transition October 24, 2005.

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On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of going to the back of the bus, which was designated for African Americans, she sat in the front. When the bus started to fill up with white passengers, the bus driver asked Parks to move. She refused. Her resistance set in motion one of the largest social movements in history, the Montgomery Bus Boycott .

Rosa Louise McCauley was born on February 4th, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. As a child, she went to an industrial school for girls and later enrolled at Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes (present-day Alabama State University). Unfortunately, Parks was forced to withdraw after her grandmother became ill. Growing up in the segregated South, Parks was frequently confronted with racial discrimination and violence. She became active in the Civil Rights Movement at a young age.

Parks married a local barber by the name of Raymond Parks when she was 19. He was actively fighting to end racial injustice. Together the couple worked with many social justice organizations. Eventually, Rosa was elected secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). 

By the time Parks boarded the bus in 1955, she was an established organizer and leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. Parks not only showed active resistance by refusing to move she also helped organize and plan the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Many have tried to diminish Parks’ role in the boycott by depicting her as a seamstress who simply did not want to move because she was tired. Parks denied the claim and years later revealed her true motivation:

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Parks courageous act and the subsequent Montgomery Bus Boycott led to the integration of public transportation in Montgomery. Her actions were not without consequence. She was jailed for refusing to give up her seat and lost her job for participating in the boycott.

After the boycott, Parks and her husband moved to Hampton, Virginia and later permanently settled in Detroit, Michigan. Parks work proved to be invaluable in Detroit’s Civil Rights Movement. She was an active member of several organizations which worked to end inequality in the city. By 1980, after consistently giving to the movement both financially and physically Parks, now widowed, suffered from financial and health troubles. After almost being evicted from her home, local community members and churches came together to support Parks. On October 24th, 2005, at the age of 92, she died of natural causes leaving behind a rich legacy of resistance against racial discrimination and injustice.

• Parks, Rosa. Rosa Parks: My Story. New York: Puffin Books, 1999.
• Theoharis, Jeanne. The Rebellious Life of Mrs.Rosa Parks. New York: Beacon Press, 2014.
• “An Act of Courage, The Arrest Records of Rosa Parks” National Archives, Accessed 23 March 2017. https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/rosa-parks
• PHOTO: Library of Congress

MLA – Norwood, Arlisha. "Rosa Parks." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2017. Date accessed.

Chicago- Norwood, Arlisha. "Rosa Parks." National Women's History Museum. 2017. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/rosa-parks.

• Robinson, Jo Ann. Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robison. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987.
• “Rosa Parks: How I Fought for Civil Rights.” Scholastic Teacher’s Activity Guide. Accessed 23 March 2017.
• “What If: I Don’t Move to the Back of The Bus?” The Henry Ford Foundation : Stories of Innovation, Accessed March 23 2017.

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By: History.com Editors

Updated: February 20, 2024 | Original: November 9, 2009

Rosa Parks (1913—2005) helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott . Led by a young Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. , the boycott lasted more than a year—during which Parks not coincidentally lost her job—and ended only when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional. Over the next half-century, Parks became a nationally recognized symbol of dignity and strength in the struggle to end entrenched racial segregation .

Rosa Parks’ Early Life

Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama , on February 4, 1913. She moved with her parents, James and Leona McCauley, to Pine Level, Alabama, at age 2 to reside with Leona’s parents. Her brother, Sylvester, was born in 1915, and shortly after that her parents separated.

Did you know? When Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in 1955, it wasn’t the first time she’d clashed with driver James Blake. Parks stepped onto his very crowded bus on a chilly day 12 years earlier, paid her fare at the front, then resisted the rule in place for Black people to disembark and re-enter through the back door. She stood her ground until Blake pulled her coat sleeve, enraged, to demand her cooperation. Parks left the bus rather than give in.

Rosa’s mother was a teacher, and the family valued education. Rosa moved to Montgomery, Alabama, at age 11 and eventually attended high school there, a laboratory school at the Alabama State Teachers’ College for Negroes. She left at 16, early in 11th grade, because she needed to care for her dying grandmother and, shortly thereafter, her chronically ill mother. In 1932, at 19, she married Raymond Parks, a self-educated man 10 years her senior who worked as a barber and was a long-time member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ). He supported Rosa in her efforts to earn her high-school diploma, which she ultimately did the following year.

Rosa Parks: Roots of Activism

Raymond and Rosa, who worked as a seamstress, became respected members of Montgomery’s large African American community. Co-existing with white people in a city governed by “ Jim Crow ” (segregation) laws, however, was fraught with daily frustrations: Black people could attend only certain (inferior) schools, could drink only from specified water fountains and could borrow books only from the “Black” library, among other restrictions.

Although Raymond had previously discouraged her out of fear for her safety, in December 1943, Rosa also joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and became chapter secretary . She worked closely with chapter president Edgar Daniel (E.D.) Nixon. Nixon was a railroad porter known in the city as an advocate for Black people who wanted to register to vote, and also as president of the local branch of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union .

December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks Is Arrested

On Thursday, December 1, 1955, the 42-year-old Rosa Parks was commuting home from a long day of work at the Montgomery Fair department store by bus. Black residents of Montgomery often avoided municipal buses if possible because they found the Negroes-in-back policy so demeaning. Nonetheless, 70 percent or more riders on a typical day were Black, and on this day Rosa Parks was one of them.

Segregation was written into law; the front of a Montgomery bus was reserved for white citizens, and the seats behind them for Black citizens. However, it was only by custom that bus drivers had the authority to ask a Black person to give up a seat for a white rider. There were contradictory Montgomery laws on the books: One said segregation must be enforced, but another, largely ignored, said no person (white or Black) could be asked to give up a seat even if there were no other seat on the bus available.

Nonetheless, at one point on the route, a white man had no seat because all the seats in the designated “white” section were taken. So the driver told the riders in the four seats of the first row of the “colored” section to stand, in effect adding another row to the “white” section. The three others obeyed. Parks did not.

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired,” wrote Parks in her autobiography, “but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically… No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Eventually, two police officers approached the stopped bus, assessed the situation and placed Parks in custody.

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Although Parks used her one phone call to contact her husband, word of her arrest had spread quickly and E.D. Nixon was there when Parks was released on bail later that evening. Nixon had hoped for years to find a courageous Black person of unquestioned honesty and integrity to become the plaintiff in a case that might become the test of the validity of segregation laws. Sitting in Parks’ home, Nixon convinced Parks—and her husband and mother—that Parks was that plaintiff. Another idea arose as well: The Black population of Montgomery would boycott the buses on the day of Parks’ trial, Monday, December 5. By midnight, 35,000 flyers were being mimeographed to be sent home with Black schoolchildren, informing their parents of the planned boycott.

On December 5, Parks was found guilty of violating segregation laws, given a suspended sentence and fined $10 plus $4 in court costs. Meanwhile, Black participation in the boycott was much larger than even optimists in the community had anticipated. Nixon and some ministers decided to take advantage of the momentum, forming the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to manage the boycott, and they elected Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.–new to Montgomery and just 26 years old—as the MIA’s president.

As appeals and related lawsuits wended their way through the courts, all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court , the Montgomery Bus Boycott engendered anger in much of Montgomery’s white population as well as some violence, and Nixon’s and Dr. King’s homes were bombed . The violence didn’t deter the boycotters or their leaders, however, and the drama in Montgomery continued to gain attention from the national and international press.

On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional; the boycott ended December 20, a day after the Court’s written order arrived in Montgomery. Parks—who had lost her job and experienced harassment all year—became known as “the mother of the civil rights movement.”

Rosa Parks's Life After the Boycott

Facing continued harassment and threats in the wake of the boycott, Parks, along with her husband and mother, eventually decided to move to Detroit, where Parks’ brother resided. Parks became an administrative aide in the Detroit office of Congressman John Conyers Jr. in 1965, a post she held until her 1988 retirement. Her husband, brother and mother all died of cancer between 1977 and 1979. In 1987, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, to serve Detroit’s youth.

In the years following her retirement, she traveled to lend her support to civil-rights events and causes and wrote an autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story . In 1999, Parks was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor the United States bestows on a civilian. (Other recipients have included George Washington , Thomas Edison , Betty Ford and Mother Teresa.) When she died at age 92 on October 24, 2005, she became the first woman in the nation’s history to lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol.

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Rosa Parks: Timeline of Her Life, Montgomery Bus Boycott and Death

After the bus boycott, Parks continued to participate in the civil rights movement. She attended the March on Washington in 1963 and in 1965 witnessed the signing of the Voting Rights Act . Her later years saw Parks' work recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.

The following timeline covers notable events and achievements in Parks' long and remarkable life:

February 4, 1913: Rosa Louise McCauley born in Tuskegee, Alabama to James and Leona McCauley

1919: A six-year-old Parks begins picking cotton alongside her grandparents. She also starts attending a segregated school in Pine Level, Alabama.

1924: As there is no local school for Black children to attend after the sixth grade, McCauley goes to Miss White’s Montgomery Industrial School for Girls in Montgomery, Alabama.

1929: Parks leaves school in the 11th grade to care for her ill grandmother and mother.

1931: While Parks is working as a housekeeper for a white family, a white neighbor attempts to rape her .

1931: Parks is introduced to Raymond Parks, whom she later described as being the first activist she encountered.

December 18, 1932: Rosa weds Raymond Parks

1933: Parks returns to school and obtains her high school diploma, a notable accomplishment at a time when very few Black people in Alabama held this degree.

1941: Parks starts work at Maxwell Air Force Base, which has an integrated cafeteria and trolley system.

December 1943: Parks joins the Montgomery branch of the NAACP

As the only woman at her first meeting, she is named secretary of the group. Parks' work for the NAACP will also include investigating crimes against Black people such as murder, assaults and police brutality.

Parks attempts to register to vote but is told she failed the literacy test required of Black voters.

September 1944: Recy Taylor, a Black woman, is gang-raped by six white men. The Montgomery NAACP dispatches Parks to investigate the case.

Parks helps establish the Committee for Equal Justice for the Rights of Mrs. Recy Taylor to advocate for legal action against Taylor's assailants. The case becomes national news but the rapists are never convicted.

1945: After taking the required literacy test for a third time, Parks becomes a registered voter. Yet before she can cast a ballot, she must pay a retroactive poll tax of $1.50 for every year since she reached the voting age of 21.

1948 : Parks becomes the Alabama state secretary for the NAACP.

1949: Parks steps back as NAACP secretary to take care of her mother.

1952: Parks returns to the Montgomery NAACP and once more becomes a branch secretary.

August 1955: Parks attends a two-week training session at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. Alongside other civil rights activists, both Black and white, she discusses how to integrate schools following the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954.

December 1, 1955: In Montgomery, Parks defies a bus driver's order to let a white man take her seat

The driver, who had treated Parks rudely and evicted her from his bus in 1943, contacts the police and she is arrested.

December 5, 1955: Though Parks was not the first Black woman arrested for defying segregation on city buses, news of her case spurs the Black community to begin a boycott of Montgomery buses .

Parks' trial takes place. She is found guilty and fined $10, plus $4 in court costs. Her lawyers file an appeal.

January 7, 1956: Parks is let go from her job as a tailor's assistant at the Montgomery Fair department store.

January 1956: Raymond quits his barbershop job after discussion of his wife and the boycott is forbidden.

February 21, 1956: Along with dozens of other civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr. , Parks is indicted for violating a Montgomery law outlawing boycotts.

February 22, 1956: Parks is among a group of indicted boycott leaders who present themselves for arrest. She is quickly released. The case against Parks is eventually dismissed.

1956: During the boycott, Parks serves as a dispatcher to coordinate carpools. She also travels across the country to speak about the boycott.

December 21, 1956: Following a Supreme Court ruling that segregated buses are unconstitutional, the 381-day boycott ends. Parks is photographed sitting at the front of a bus for Look magazine.

August 1957: Unable to find work in Montgomery and still facing threats for her role in the bus boycott, Parks and her family depart for Detroit

October 1957: Parks becomes a hostess at the Holly Tree Inn, part of the Hampton Institute in Virginia, but leaves after the fall semester in 1958 to rejoin her husband and mother in Detroit.

1959: Parks begins doing piecework for Detroit's Stockton Sewing Company, a job she holds through 1964.

July 1960: A Jet magazine article reveals that Parks and her family have been struggling financially, due in part to her health problems.

August 28, 1963: Parks attends the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom . No women are invited to speak at the event, but Parks is among those singled out for a "Tribute to Women" in the civil rights movement.

March 1, 1965: Parks takes a job in the Detroit office of newly elected Congressman John Conyers, where her tasks include answering phones and aiding constituents. She stays in this position until her retirement in 1988.

March 25, 1965: Parks joins the march to Montgomery for equal voting rights. Many of the marchers do not recognize her but in the end she is acknowledged and invited to speak at the capitol building.

August 6, 1965: Parks is among those present to witness President Lyndon Johnson's signing of the Voting Rights Act.

July 23, 1967: Parks is in Detroit during five days of rioting. Amid the upheaval, her husband's barbershop is destroyed.

August 30, 1967: A "People's Tribunal" is held regarding the deaths of three young Black men during the Detroit riots. Parks serves on the jury, which finds the police who were at the scene guilty (the officers faced no such repercussions in the legal system).

August 19, 1977: Parks' husband, Raymond, dies.

August 1979: The NAACP presents Parks with its highest accolade, the Spingarn Medal.

January 14, 1980: Parks is given the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize

1987: Parks establishes the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development, intended to help young people better understand the past and prepare for their futures.

1992: Rosa Parks: My Story , an autobiography for younger readers, is published.

August 30, 1994: Parks is robbed and beaten by a mugger inside her home.

October 16, 1995: At the invitation of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Parks attends the Million Man March in Washington, D.C.

1994: Another book by Parks, entitled Quiet Strength , is published.

September 15, 1996: Parks is presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bill Clinton .

June 15, 1999: Parks receives the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest legislative honor in the United States.

April 14, 2005: Parks and the hip-hop group Outkast reach an out-of-court settlement regarding their 1998 song "Rosa Parks."

October 24, 2005: Parks dies at the age of 92

Her body is brought to lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, the first time for a woman to receive this recognition.

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Biography of Rosa Parks, Civil Rights Pioneer

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• Civil Rights
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• M.S.Ed, Secondary Education, St. John's University
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Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913–October 24, 2005) was a civil rights activist in Alabama when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white person: her case touched off the Montgomery Bus Boycott and was a significant milestone in forcing the Supreme Court to end segregation. She once said, "When people made up their minds that they wanted to be free and took action, then there was change. But they couldn't rest on just that change. It has to continue." Parks' words encapsulate her work as a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement .

• Known For : Civil rights activist in the American south of 1950s and 1960s
• Born : February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama
• Parents : James and Leona Edwards McCauley 
• Died : October 24, 2005 in Detroit, Michigan
• Education : Alabama State Teacher's College for Negroes
• Spouse : Raymond Parks
• Children : None

Rosa Louise McCauley was born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her mother Leona Edwards was a teacher and her father James McCauley was a carpenter.

Early in Parks' childhood, she moved to Pine Level, right outside the state capital of Montgomery. Parks was a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and attended primary school until the age of 11.

Parks walked to school every day and realized the disparity between Black and white children. In her biography, Parks recalled, "I'd see the bus pass every day. But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a Black world and white world."

Education and Family

Parks continued her education at the Alabama State Teacher's College for Negroes for Secondary Education. However, after a few semesters, Parks returned home to care for her ailing mother and grandmother.

In 1932, Parks married Raymond Parks, a barber and a member of the NAACP. Parks became involved in the NAACP through her husband, helping to raise money for the Scottsboro Boys . In the daytime, Parks worked as a maid and hospital aide before finally receiving her high school diploma in 1933.

Civil Rights Movement

In 1943, Parks became even more involved in the Civil Rights Movement and was elected secretary of the NAACP. Of this experience, Parks said, "I was the only woman there, and they needed a secretary, and I was too timid to say no." The following year, Parks used her role as secretary to research the gang rape of Recy Taylor. As a result, other local activist established the "Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor." Through the help of newspapers such as The Chicago Defender, the incident received national attention.

While working for a liberal white couple, Parks was encouraged to attend the Highlander Folk School, a center for activism in worker's rights and social equality.

Following her education at this school, Parks attended a meeting in Montgomery address the Emmitt Till case. At the end of the meeting, it was decided that African-Americans needed to do more to fight for their rights.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

It was a few weeks before Christmas in 1955 when Rosa Parks boarded a bus after working as a seamstress. Taking a seat in the "colored" section of the bus, Parks was asked by a white man to get up and move so that he could sit. Parks refused. As a result, the police were called and Parks was arrested.

Parks' refusal to move her seat ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott , a protest that lasted 381 days and pushed Martin Luther King Jr. into the national spotlight. Throughout the boycott, King referred to Parks as "the great fuse that led to the modern stride toward freedom."

Parks was not the first woman to refuse to give up her seat on a public bus. In 1945, Irene Morgan was arrested for the same act. And several months before Parks, Sarah Louise Keys and Claudette Covin committed the same transgression. However, NAACP leaders argued that Parks—with her long history as a local activist—would be able to see a court challenge through. As a result, Parks was considered an iconic figure in the Civil Rights Movement and the fight against racism and segregation in the United States.

Following the Boycott

Although Parks' courage allowed her to become a symbol of the growing movement, she and her husband suffered severely. Park was fired from her job at the local department store. No longer feeling safe in Montgomery, the Parks moved to Detroit as part of the Great Migration .

While living in Detroit, Parks served as secretary for U.S. Representative John Conyers from 1965 to 1969.

Following her retirement from Conyers' office, Parks devoted her time to documenting and continuing to support the civil rights work she had begun in the 1950s. In 1979, Parks received the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. In 1987, the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development was incorporated by Parks and long-time friend Elaine Eason Steele, to teach, support, and encourage leadership and civil rights in young people.

She wrote two books: "Rosa Parks: My Story," in 1992, and "Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation," in 1994. A collection of her letters was published in 1996, called "Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue With Today's Youth." She was the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (in 1996, from President Bill Clinton), the Congressional Gold Medal (in 1999), and many other accolades.

In 2000, the Rosa Parks Museum and Library at Troy State University in Montgomery was opened near where she had been arrested. 

Parks died of natural causes at the age of 92 in her home in Detroit, Michigan on October 24, 2005. She was the first woman and second non-U.S. government official to lie in honor at the Capitol Rotunda.

• " Rosa Parks, civil rights pioneer, dies. " The New York Times , October 25, 2005. 
• Rowbotham, Sheila. " Rosa Parks: Activist whose refusal to give up her bus seat ignited the US civil rights movement ." The Guardian , October 25, 2005.
• Sullivan, Patricia. " Bus Ride Shook a Nation's Conscience ." Washington Post, October 25, 2005. 
• Theoharis, Jeanne. "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks." Boston: Beacon Press, 2013.
• Quotes From Civil Rights Icon Rosa Parks
• How Rosa Parks Helped Spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Montgomery Bus Boycott Timeline
• Organizations of the Civil Rights Movement
• Civil Rights Movement Timeline From 1951 to 1959
• Biography of Virginia Durr
• Browder v. Gayle: Court Case, Arguments, Impact
• 10 of the Most Important Black Women in U.S. History
• Ralph Abernathy: Advisor and Confidante to Martin Luther King Jr.
• A Profile of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
• Important Cities in Black History
• The Early History of the NAACP: A Timeline
• Congress of Racial Equality: History and Impact on Civil Rights
• Black History from 1950–1959
• The Black Struggle for Freedom
• Black History and Women's Timeline: 1950–1959

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks  

By jeanne theoharis, “treading the tightrope of jim crow”.

Portrait of Rosa Parks. Library of Congress, courtesy of Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. Retrieved from: www.loc.gov/teachers

Born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, AL, Rosa Parks was raised by her mother and grandparents in Pine Level, Alabama. Her grandfather supported the Garvey movement and, when Klan violence escalated after World War I, would sit out on the porch with his shotgun to protect the family home.  A 6-year-old Rosa would sometimes sit vigil with him.  Rosa McCauley was a shy young woman but she had a feisty side, picking up a brick when a white bully threatened her and her brother and pushing back when a white boy pushed her. Her grandmother worried about her granddaughter’s determined spirit and her ways of “talking biggety to white folks”. An older Rosa Parks recounted how her grandmother grew very angry when a young Rosa told her about the brick incident and worried for her safety. Rosa told her grandmother: “I would rather be lynched than live to be mistreated than not be allowed to say ‘I don’t like it.’”

Rosa Parks framed the power of speaking back as fundamental. Full personhood required the option “to say ‘I don’t like it,’” and key to the functioning of white supremacy was shutting down the right and space to assert this. Nonetheless, Parks’ “determination never to accept it, even if it must be endured” led her to “search for a way of working for freedom and first class citizenship.”

Related primary source: Early childhood incidents and experiences and family, Rosa Parks’ recollections. Library of Congress, courtesy of Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development.