October 25, 2005
Rosa Parks Leaves Legacy of Quiet Defiance as Icon of Civil Rights Movement
Rosa Parks, the woman known as the "mother of the civil rights movement," died Monday at her home in Detroit from natural causes. Parks turned the course of American history by refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white man in 1955.

Joseph Lowery, who helped lead the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr., and Democratic Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a 1960s civil rights activist and the elected delegate for Washington, D.C., reflect on Parks' role in changing the United States.

Update: Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dies at 92

Rosa Parks' quiet, yet defiant refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Ala. bus, sparked one of the longest and most influential civil rights protests in the nation's history -- an effort that eventually led to a Supreme Court decision that ended segregation on transportation in the United States.

Born Rosa Louise McCauley on Feb. 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Ala., she was the daughter of a carpenter and a teacher. At age 2, she moved to her grandparents' farm in rural Alabama with her mother and younger brother, Sylvester. It was not long after that Rosa Parks developed a thirst for education and deep faith in God that would sustain her for the challenges that would lay head.

NewsHour Extra for Students: The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development

Rosa Parks Library and Museum