December 1, 1955

Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery after refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. Her actions resulted in a $10 fine and sparked a year-long boycott of the city’s segregated bus system by Montgomery’s black population. The arrest also prompted a legal challenge of the city’s segregation ordinances, which resulted in the 1956 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Browder v. Gayle that officially integrated the state’s bus systems. Parks continued to work for civil rights causes throughout her life and, in 1996, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton for her work.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Photograph of Rosa Parks with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1955. (National Archives and Records Administration, Records Group 306, Wikipedia)

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This mug shot of Rosa Parks was taken when she was arrested in February 1956 for protesting during the Montgomery bus boycott. The image was discovered in 2004 when a Montgomery County chief deputy found it in storage. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, photo courtesy of Montgomery County Archives)

Alabamian Rosa Parks (1913-2005) is renowned as “the mother of the civil rights movement.” Her arrest for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus in 1955 became a rallying point for the emerging civil rights movement in Alabama. Parks has been honored by presidents and received numerous awards, including the Congressional Gold Medal. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, photo courtesy of the Library of Congress)

The U.S. Postal Service released a commemorative stamp honoring civil rights icon Rosa Parks in February 2013. Artist Thomas Blackshear II created an original painting for the stamp, based on a 1950s photograph. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, photo courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service)

Rosa Parks Congressional Gold Medal presented to Rosa Parks on 28 November 1999. The medal was designed by Artis Lane. (U.S. Mint, Wikipedia)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.