Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Alabama, on February 4, 1913. She is best known for her act of civil disobedience which helped spur the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s.
In 1954, Rosa Parks was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She started an NAACP youth group for teens. Soon after, fifteen-year-old member Claudette Colvin was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person on the bus. The NAACP began planning boycotts and protests, but did not feel people would rally around a teenager.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to stand and give up her bus seat for a white man. She was arrested, and the bus boycott began. After 381 days, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional. This was a victory on the road to civil rights in the United States. Congress finally passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, outlawing the “Jim Crow” segregation laws.
Learn more about Rosa Parks and other women in history online with Biography and U.S. History by Gale in Context.
References:
Taylor-Butler, Christine. Rosa Parks. Scholastic Inc., 2015.
“Rosa Parks.” Newsmakers, Gale, 2007. Gale In Context: Biography, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1618004436/BIC?u=santacc_main&sid=bookmark-BIC&xid=96a01dcb. Accessed 1 Mar. 2025.
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