4. Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks changed history through a simple act of defiance, refusing to surrender her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white passenger. Contrary to popular belief, she was not sitting in a “whites only’ section of the bus. Nor was she the first black passenger to refuse to relinquish her seat when ordered, but her case gained fame because the NAACP considered her most likely to prevail in a lawsuit challenging the state’s segregation laws. Parks also moved when the driver demanded, but to another seat in the same row, rather than to a row in the rear. She was arrested for violation of the segregation law. The act led to lawsuits and a boycott of the city’s bus system by black riders, more than 75% of the customer base.
Parks became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement, though she often disagreed with movement leaders, including Martin Luther King. She participated in several of the movement’s events in the 1960s, among them the Selma-to-Montgomery marches. She died in Detroit in 2005 after a life of activism, some of it controversial, including involvement in the Black Power movements and the Republic of New Afrika. In 1999 she received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award of the United States Congress. The medal bore the inscription, “Mother of the Modern Day Civil Rights Movement”.
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