She has been called the first lady of civil rights. Rosa Parks, who died 15 years ago on Oct. 24, 2005, is a global icon of the struggle against racial injustice, a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C. After finishing her work as a seamstress on the evening of Dec. 1, 1955, Parks sat in the “colored” section in the middle of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, where she was required to sit under Jim Crow-era laws. But there was a movable line between the segregated sections, and when the white section filled up, the bus driver asked her to move. Parks slid to the window seat in the same aisle, but from there she refused to budge until she was escorted off the bus by the police under arrest. Parks’ action inspired the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott, a seminal event in the civil rights movement.
via splcenter: Celebrating Rosa Parks: A civil rights icon for the ages
Von <a rel=”nofollow” class=”external text” href=”https://www.flickr.com/people/36277035@N06″>John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com</a> from Laurel Maryland, USA – <a rel=”nofollow” class=”external text” href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/kingkongphoto/46325367531/”>ROSA PARKS 1999</a>, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link