On This Day In Alabama History: Civil Rights Legend Rosa Parks Died

By Alabama NewsCenter Staff

October 25, 2005: Rosa Parks, best known for her refusal to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus to a white passenger, died in Detroit at the age of 92. Her arrest in 1955 prompted a bus boycott, thrust the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. into the national spotlight and led to major federal civil rights legislation. Although these events made Parks a household name, she had become active in civil rights more than a decade earlier with the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. A native of Tuskegee, Parks moved in 1957 to Detroit and resumed her earlier work as a seamstress but remained involved as a spokeswoman for civil rights causes. She returned to Alabama in 1965 to take part in the Selma-to-Montgomery march. Parks later worked as an aide to U.S. Rep. John Conyers, managing his Detroit office until she retired in 1988. In later years, she received numerous awards for her life’s work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996.

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