Rosa Parks

On December 1st 1955 Rosa Parks made history by refusing to move to the back of city bus after the bus driver repeatedly asked her to move. The bus driver threatened to have her arrested but Miss. Parks refused to move. Unfortunately the bus driver went through with his actions and she was arrested. She was taken to the Montgomery's Alabama Police station. Her case was not very unique though. African Americans were always getting in trouble for disobeying the segregation laws. Previous to the year before though the Brown V. Education law was passed that stated educational segregation was inherently illegal. This made Rosa Parks want to fight even more for her rights. Rosa started putting on strikes against the bus company. She got as many African Americans who rode the buss' to stop, this comprised 70% of the bus riding community. The boycott was extremely successful lasting over a year! Although a great achievement Rosa and her family were discriminated against even more. Her family members loosing jobs, getting into altercations, it was not a safe environment for the Parks family. Parks received numerous awards, including an honorary degree from Shaw College in Detroit, the 1979 NAACP Spingarn Medal, and an annual Freedom Award presented in her honor by the SCLC. In 1980 she was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize and in 1984 the Eleanor Roosevelt Women of Courage Award. In 1988 she founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, to train African American youth for leadership roles, and began serving as the institute's president. In 1989 her accomplishments were honored at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Rosa Parks risked practically her life for African American which is why she is such an outstanding women that people today still look up to.