Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an African-American activist and, in the words of the United States Congress, "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement.”
In December 1955, Parks famously refused to obey a bus driver who told her to give up her seat to a white woman. Her courage kicked off the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, which proved to be a spark in the fight for equal rights.
Parks died on Oct. 24, 2005, at the age of 92.
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