Became a symbol of the civil rights movement
Parks is best known for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus in segregated Alabama.
Prior to this moment, Parks worked as a seamstress while joining her local chapter of the NAACP.
On December 1, 1955, Parks became the face of the modern civil rights movement when she was arrested for not giving her bus seat to a white man.
This event was a catalyst for the civil rights movement and African Americans began boycotting the buses for just over an entire year.
In November 1956, the US Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional.
Parks’ work as the “mother of the civil rights movement” left a lasting legacy on the fight for equality in the United States and earned her the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999.
