This Day in History: , Rosa Parks Ignites Bus Boycott.<br />December 1, 1955.<br />“The mother of the civil <br />rights movement,” Parks was jailed <br />in Montgomery, AL, for refusing to give <br />up her seat on a public bus to a white man.<br />A Montgomery city ordinance <br />required Black Americans to <br />sit in the back of city buses and<br />give up their seats to white riders.<br />The local chapter of the NAACP, <br />of which Parks was a member, <br />had been planning to challenge <br />the racist bus laws for months.<br />The 42-year-old seamstress' <br />decision to refuse her seat was <br />spontaneous, but she was aware <br />of the implications of her choice.<br />Parks' historic act of civil <br />disobedience led to the <br />successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, <br />organized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.<br />Less than a year after Parks' arrest, <br />the U.S. Supreme Court struck <br />down the bus segregation laws as <br />a violation of the 14th Amendment
