On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks, an African-American, was arrested and charged with violating a Montgomery, Ala., ordinance that required her to relinquish her bus seat to a white passenger. Her act of defiance sparked a yearlong bus boycott in the segregated city. In 1956, the Supreme Court found the ordinance unconstitutional.
At the time,Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress, served as secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. On Sept. 9, 1996, President Bill Clinton presented Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the executive branch’s highest honor.
Fifty-five years ago, African-American "Rosa Parks" refused to give up her seat for a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Ala.—an event which would become a turning point in American history.
The boycott lasted 381 days, according to Parks's official website.
Civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Abernathy joined with the city's black population in a non-violent protest of the discriminatory system.
The boycott of the city's public transit system led to its financial crippling.
Rosa Parks, arrested for her stand, was acquitted from breaking any law as a United States Supreme Court decision declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional.
On Wednesday, Google and others paid tribute to civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.
Parks, a seamstress, refused to give a white man her bus seat on Dec. 1, 1955. TIME NewsFeed said the boycott lasted 381 days until the Supreme Court ruled that Montgomery's law was unconstitutional.
A click on the doodle showed searches relevant to Parks.
Parks is among a variety of people honored this year by Google, which USA Today said also honored John Lennon and Agatha Christie.
Tony-award winning actress and playwright Sarah Jones held a benefit concert at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival for the Rosa Parks Museum.
President Clinton awarded Parks the Medal of Freedom in 1996.
