Date of Birth
4 February 1913, Tuskegee, Alabama, USA
Date of Death::
24 October 2005, Detroit, Michigan, USA (natural causes)
Birth Name:: Rosa Louise McCauley
Nickname:: The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement
Height:: 5' 3" (1.60 m)
Spouse::
Raymond Parks (18 December 1932 - 19 August 1977) (his death)
Trivia::
Arrested December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to yield her seat on a city bus to a white male. This act led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott that desegregated Montgomery buses.
Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.
Has an elementary school named after her in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sandra Graham and Rosa Parks Alternative Public School. Graham & Parks for short.
Is a honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.
Awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, America's highest honor, in 1999.
Is the first woman and the second African-American to lie in repose at the Capitol Rotunda in Washington D.C.
Has a school named after her in Lancaster, Texas; Rosa Parks Millbrook Elementary School.
After nationwide services and celebrations of Rosa Parks' life she was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, Wayne County, Detroit, Michigan.
The African-American boycott of Montgomery buses that followed Parks' arrest lasted for more than a year, forcing company officials to rescind their separatist seating policies. Parks' fine for not surrendering her bus seat to a white man: $14.00.
Coincidentally, Yolanda King who portrayed Parks in "King" (1978), is the daughter of Martin Luther King who, like Parks, fought vehemently all his life for equal rights.
Personal Quotes::
"I understand I am a symbol, but I have never gotten used to being a public person."