On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to switch to the back of a city bus. The 42-year-old woman did not know that her action would help end the laws of southern segregation.
He was on his way home from work that night and took a seat at the beginning of the black section of a city bus in Montgomery.
The bus was full and the bus driver demanded that he move so that a white male passenger could sit.
But Parks refused to give up his seat and police arrested him. Four days later, Parks was convicted of rioting.
The events triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks, organized by a 26-year-old Baptist minister, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
The boycott led to a Supreme Court decision that fragmented public transportation in Montgomery. But it was only in the Civil Law Act of 1964 that all public accommodation nationwide was separated.
