Rosa Parks
''Rosa Parks being fingerprinted at the police station in
Montgomery, Alabama after being arrested for not giving up her seat to a white passenger
(born
February 4,
1913), best known by her married name
Rosa Parks, is a retired seamstress who is noted as being a very important
American civil rights movement activist.
She was born in
Tuskegee, Alabama and is most famous for her
December 1,
1955 arrest for refusing a bus driver's order to give up her seat to a white man and stand in
Montgomery,
Alabama. She was arrested, tried, and convicted for disorderly conduct, and on appeal, the case ultimately resulted in the
1956 United States Supreme Court ruling that segregated bus service was unconstitutional. Her arrest was used by Baptist minister
Martin Luther King, Jr to lead the successful year-long
Montgomery bus boycott and to help mount other protests against laws requiring
racial segregation. Parks moved to Detroit in the early 1960s, where she continues to reside.
Although she is known for refusing to give up her bus seat, she was not the first to do so. Indeed, the
NAACP had accepted and litigated other cases before, such as that of
Irene Morgan, ten years earlier, which resulted in a victory in the Supreme Court on
Commerce Clause grounds. That victory only overturned State segregation laws as applied to actual travel in interstate commerce, e.g. interstate bus travel. The Rosa Parks case is considered
the landmark because it applied to all segregationist laws, not just those affecting interstate commerce.
The
NAACP had additionally considered but rejected some earlier protesters deemed unable or unsuitable to withstand the pressure of a legal challenge to segregation laws (See
Claudette Colvin,
Mary Louise Smith). The selection of her for a test case supported by the NAACP has been speculated to be in part because she was employed by the NAACP.
She served on the staff of
U. S. Representative John Conyers (
D-
Michigan) from 1965-1988.
After a lifetime of activity fighting
racism, Parks was awarded the
Congressional Gold Medal in
1999. (Other protesters did not receive this medal).
The Rosa Parks Library and Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, was dedicated in November
2001. It tells the story of the events leading up to her historic act of
civil disobedience, and how her simple act connects to the larger tapestry of the
civil rights movement.
The
Rosa Parks Highway is named after her.
Lawsuit Against OutKast
\nFor information on her lawsuit against OutKast see OutKast.
External link
\n* The Rosa Parks Library and Museum at TSUM
