Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement, best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott.

She became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation, and organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including Edgar Nixon and Martin Luther King Jr. At the time, Parks was employed as a seamstress at a local department store and was secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP.

[10] To supplement the family's income, she worked on the plantation of Moses Hudson, who paid Black children 50 cents a day to pick cotton.

[13] Alabama and other southern states began implementing segregationist policies during the 1870s and 1880s, culminating in a 1901 constitutional convention that formally codified Jim Crow segregation into law.

This system enforced racial separation in nearly all aspects of life, including financial institutions, healthcare, religious facilities, burial grounds, and public transportation.

[14] Acts of racist violence were also widespread, with the Ku Klux Klan intensifying its activity in Pine Level after the end of World War I.

She then attended a laboratory school set up by the Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes, but dropped out to care for her ailing grandmother and mother.

[30] The Supreme Court of the United States ultimately overturned the Scottsboro Boys' convictions in Powell v. Alabama, citing insufficient legal representation.

[31] In December 1943, Parks became active in the civil rights movement, joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, and was elected secretary at a time when this was considered a woman's job.

[34] Parks continued her work as an anti-rape activist five years later when she helped organize protests in support of Gertrude Perkins, a black woman who was raped by two white Montgomery police officers.

They encouraged—and eventually helped sponsor—Parks in the summer of 1955 to attend the Highlander Folk School, an education center for activism in workers' rights and racial equality in Monteagle, Tennessee.

[38] In August 1955, black teenager Emmett Till was brutally murdered after reportedly flirting with a young white woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi.

[39] On November 27, 1955, four days before she would make her stand on the bus, Rosa Parks attended a mass meeting at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery that addressed this case, as well as the recent murders of the activists George W. Lee and Lamar Smith.

Years later, in recalling the events of the day, Parks said, "When that white driver stepped back toward us, when he waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats, I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night.

[53] Parks later said about being asked to move to the rear of the bus, "I thought of Emmett Till—a 14-year-old African American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman in her family's grocery store, whose killers were tried and acquitted—and I just couldn't go back.

'"[55] During a 1956 radio interview with Sydney Rogers in West Oakland several months after her arrest, Parks said she had decided, "I would have to know for once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen.

[60] Edgar Nixon, president of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and leader of the Pullman Porters Union, and her friend Clifford Durr bailed Parks out of jail that evening.

[65] Nixon conferred with Jo Ann Robinson, an Alabama State College professor and member of the Women's Political Council (WPC), about the Parks case.

At a church rally that night, those attending agreed unanimously to continue the boycott until they were treated with the level of courtesy they expected, until black drivers were hired, and until seating in the middle of the bus was handled on a first-come basis.

After being found guilty and fined $10, plus $4 in court costs (a total of $161.11 as of March 12, 2024),[52] Parks appealed her conviction and formally challenged the legality of racial segregation.

Its members elected as their president Martin Luther King Jr., a relative newcomer to Montgomery, who was a young and mostly unknown minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

"[73] Parks was considered the ideal plaintiff for a test case against city and state segregation laws, as she was seen as a responsible, mature woman with a good reputation.

Later that year, at the urging of her brother and sister-in-law in Detroit, Sylvester and Daisy McCauley, Rosa and Raymond Parks and her mother moved north to join them.

"[81] Doing much of the daily constituent work for Conyers, Parks often focused on socio-economic issues including welfare, education, job discrimination, and affordable housing.

Parks lived just a mile from the center of the riot that took place in Detroit in 1967, and she considered housing discrimination a major factor that provoked the disorder.

[80] In the aftermath Parks collaborated with members of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and the Republic of New Afrika in raising awareness of police abuse during the conflict.

[96][97][98][99] Suffering anxiety upon returning to her small central Detroit house following the ordeal, Parks moved into Riverfront Towers, a secure high-rise apartment building.

A memorial service was held that afternoon at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C.[111] With her body and casket returned to Detroit, for two days, Parks lay in repose at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

"[177]: 31–32  The film Barbershop (2002) featured a barber, played by Cedric the Entertainer, arguing with others that other African Americans before Parks had been active in bus integration, but she was renowned as an NAACP secretary.

The activists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton launched a boycott against the film, contending it was "disrespectful", but NAACP president Kweisi Mfume stated he thought the controversy was "overblown".