Rosa Parks was the 'mother of the civil rights movement,' whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama sparked the boycott that launched the modern civil rights struggle. But Parks was no accidental heroine—she was a trained activist whose arrest was a deliberate act of resistance.
Parks had worked as secretary for the Montgomery NAACP for years before December 1, 1955. She had attended the Highlander Folk School, which trained civil rights activists. When she refused to move, she was arrested for violating segregation laws. The Montgomery Improvement Association, led by the young Martin Luther King Jr., organized a 381-day boycott that ended bus segregation.
Parks paid dearly for her stand—she lost her job, received death threats, and eventually moved to Detroit. She continued activism throughout her life, working for Congressman John Conyers and founding the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. Her quiet dignity embodied nonviolent resistance. When she died, she lay in honor in the Capitol Rotunda—the first woman so honored.