ROSA PARKS
On the afternoon of December 1, 1955, 42-year-old African American Rosa Parks, returning home from her job as an assistant tailor at a Montgomery, Alabama, department store, boarded bus 2857 on the Cleveland Avenue line. When told to give up her seat for a white man, she refused and was arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws. Her act of civil disobedience precipitated the 13-month Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was led by Martin Luther King.
