Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat, sparking Montgomery Bus Boycott

Rosa Parks, NAACP secretary and trained activist, refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama city bus on December 1, 1955, leading to her arrest and sparking the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott, led by the 26-year-old Martin Luther King Jr., ended bus segregation in Montgomery and launched the modern civil rights movement.