Forty-two year old Rosa Parks, a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama was tired after a long day at work and waiting for a bus. A quiet and unassuming woman, she merely wanted to get home and rest before making dinner, but when the bus driver asked her to give up her seat so that a white man could sit down, she firmly denied his request, setting in action a series of protests that signaled the beginning of the civil rights movement in America. Her cause was championed by both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Abernathy, legendary figures in their own right who, along with Rosa Parks, risked their lives for the greater good. On Nov. 13, 1956, almost a year after Rosa ParksΓÇÖ personal act of courage, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark civil rights decision, declaring AlabamaΓÇÖs bus segregation laws unconstitutional.
