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| The No. 2857 bus on which Parks was riding before she was arrested (a GM "old-look" transit bus, serial number 1132), is now a museum exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum |
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement".
On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Parks' action was not the first of its kind to impact the civil rights issue. Others had taken similar steps, but Parks' civil disobedience had the effect of sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
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| Rosa Parks in 1955, with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the background |
On Monday, December 5, a new organization was to lead the boycott effort. The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was formed. Its members elected as their president a relative newcomer to Montgomery, a young and mostly unknown minister of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Parks' act of defiance helped boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr to national prominence in the civil rights movement.
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| President Barak Obama sits for a moment inside the bus where Rosa Parks refused to give out her seat |
The advancement of civil right in the United State by King Jr by non-violent methods as preached by Mahatma Gandhi made the election of a black president possible. And today the efforts of Parks and King Jr have yielded a black President of the United State - President Barak Obama.
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