Rosa Parks refuses to stand

1 December 1955, Alabama, USA

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically … No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in” – Rosa Parks

After finishing work as a department store seamstress, Rosa Parks boarded a public bus to go home, sitting directly behind the whites-only section. Later, when a white man boarded only to find that all the seats for white passengers were taken, the driver told Parks and three other black passengers to move. The others complied but Parks refused and was subsequently arrested. Her refusal prompted the local Black community to organise the Montgomery Bus Boycott to end segregation on buses, a protest which captured national attention. It lasted for

381 days and ended after bus segregation was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, demonstrating that non-violent mass protests could successfully challenge racial injustice and segregation. A long-time member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Parks’ defiant actions helped to galvanise the civil rights activists and she became known as ‘the mother of the civil rights movement.’