Rosa Lee Parks

Parks, Rosa Lee (1913– ), African American civil rights activist. In 1955, in Montgomery, Ala., she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, as required by segregation law. Her arrest led to an antisegregation boycott of Montgomery's buses that lasted more than a year and finally succeeded in desegregating the buses. Martin Luther King, Jr. first rose to national prominence for his leadership of the boycott, which inspired the civil rights movement throughout the country. Parks, who lost her job as seamstress as a result of her actions, eventually joined the staff of Detroit congressman John Conyers, Jr. (1967). She won the Spingarn Medal for her contribution to the civil rights movement (1979).

See also: Civil rights.