How Rosa Parks defied racism on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama.

“All I was doing was trying to get home from work.”

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (1913 – 2005)

On the first of December 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for civil disobedience. She had refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a crowded bus in the racially segregated town of Montgomery, Alabama. Her defiance sparked the push for racial equality, which brought civil rights superstars such as Martin Luther King Jr. into the public eye and changed the world forever.

On December 1, 2005, President George W. Bush directed that a statue of Parks be placed in the United States Capitol’s National Statuary Hall.

The President stated:

“By placing her statue in the heart of the nation’s Capitol, we commemorate her work for a more perfect union, and we commit ourselves to continue to struggle for justice for every American.