Rosa Parks 55 Year Anniversary

Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white passenger on a Montgomery bus 55 years ago—a turning point in American history.
Rosa Parks 55 Year Anniversary
Rosa Parks exhibit at the National Civil Rights Museum. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) visits with Dr. Benjamin Hooks (R) in 2008. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
12/2/2010
Updated:
10/1/2015

<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/80523109.jpg" alt="Rosa Parks exhibit at the National Civil Rights Museum. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) visits with Dr. Benjamin Hooks (R) in 2008. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)" title="Rosa Parks exhibit at the National Civil Rights Museum. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) visits with Dr. Benjamin Hooks (R) in 2008. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1811388"/></a>
Rosa Parks exhibit at the National Civil Rights Museum. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) visits with Dr. Benjamin Hooks (R) in 2008. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Fifty-five years ago, African-American Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Ala.—an event which would become a turning point in American history.

Her refusal to obey the bus driver’s order on December 1, 1955, sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a campaign that protested Montgomery’s policy of racial segregation on its public transit system.

The boycott lasted 381 days, according to Parks’s official website.

Civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Abernathy joined with the city’s black population in a non-violent protest of the discriminatory system.

The boycott of the city’s public transit system led to its financial crippling.

Parks, arrested for her stand, was acquitted from breaking any law as a United States Supreme Court decision declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional.

Parks’s legacy continues to remind modern Americans what can happen when one individual stands up against injustice.

As the proclaimed Mother of the Civil Rights Movement said, “As long as any of us are willing to pay the price, there is hope.”

You can visit the Rosa Parks official website at Rosaparks.org.