Rosa Parks

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (born February 4, 1913 – died October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the Civil Rights Movement, whom the United States Congress called "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement". On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order to give up her seat in the "colored section" to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled. Parks' act of defiance and the Montgomery bus boycott became important symbols of the modern Civil Rights Movement.