I was just over a year old when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955. It was noted in the newspapers Tuesday morning that Ms. Parks had passed at age 92. Ms. Parks’ action is credited with inspiring a nationwide movement for equal rights lead by a then young and relatively unknown minister by the name of Martin Luther King Jr.
U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) said “Rosa Parks, the mother of the modern civil rights movement, was an advocate for non-violence at a time when violence penetrated every level of our society.”
About a year later, on December 21, 1956, King and others were the first to board a city bus as equals with whites.
Ms. Parks showed us all that one person can make a difference.