Rosa Parks

She has inspired a lot of people. Rosa Parks, Rosa Louise McCauley (1913- ), African American civil rights activist, who is often called the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. Her arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a bus triggered the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 and 1956 and set in motion the test case for the desegregation of public transportation. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks was arrested for disregarding an order to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger. Her protest galvanized a growing movement to desegregate public transportation and marked a historic turning point in the African American battle for civil rights. Rosa Parks was much more than an accidental symbol, however. It is sometimes overlooked that at the time of her arrest, she was no ordinary bus rider; she was an experienced activist with strong beliefs. Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama. She was the granddaughter of former slaves and the daughter of James McCauley, a carpenter, and Leona McCauley, a rural schoolteacher. The future civil rights leader grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, where she attended the all-black Alabama State College. In 1932 she married Raymond Rosa Parks, a barber, with whom she became active in Montgomery’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).