Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American civil rights activist. She is best known for her 1955 refusal to move from her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in defiance of Jim Crow racial segregation laws, which sparked the Montgomery bus boycott. She is sometimes known as the “mother of the civil rights movement”. Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, Parks grew up under Jim Crow segregation. She later moved to Montgomery and joined the city’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1943, serving as the organization’s secretary. Despite policies designed to disenfranchise Black citizens, Parks successfully registered to vote after three separate attempts between 1943 and 1945. She investigated cases and organized campaigns around cases of racial and sexual violence in her capacity as NAACP secretary, including those of Recy Taylor and Jeremiah Reeves, laying the groundwork for future civil rights campaigns. Custom in Montgomery required Black passengers to surrender their seats in the front of the bus to accommodate white riders. The rows in the back were designated for Black riders. Before Parks’s refusal to move, several Black Montgomerians had refused to do so, including 15-year-old high school student Claudette Colvin, leading to arrests. When Parks was arrested in 1955, local leaders were searching for a person who would be a good legal test case against segregation.
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