Rosa Parks lived from 1913-2005, and is often called “the mother of the Civil Rights Movement.” The Civil Rights Movement was a major effort that took place about 50-60 years ago (1950s and 1960s) and used peaceful methods to help end unfair treatment of people based on their skin color. At that time, Americans with lighter skin, particularly in the South, were given privileges and opportunities that people with darker skin didn’t have. This was known as “racial segregation.” It wasn’t a fair way to treat people, and it wasn’t right.

What Mrs. Parks came to be best known for happened on December 1st, 1955, when she refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man, even though the city’s rules of racial segregation said she had to. She was arrested and fined for violating these rules, which upset a lot of people who knew it wasn’t right to have these rules, and that it also wasn’t right to arrest and fine Mrs. Parks for taking a stand against them!

Four days later, Martin Luther King, Jr. organized a boycott of the buses. The boycott lasted for over a year (382 days), which really showed people that African American citizens were serious about fixing the unfair way they were being treated! – The boycott, triggered by Mrs. Parks’ refusal to give up her bus seat, is often seen as the first moment of the American Civil Rights Movement.