By the time she died in 2005, Rosa Parks was known around the world as an icon of activism. Her act of defiance one ordinary Thursday afternoon in Montgomery, Alabama catapulted her to the forefront of the battle for racial equality in America. But what was her story before that fateful moment in 1955? What course did her life take afterward?

This is a Short History of Rosa Parks.

Written by Kate Simants. With thanks to Dr. Danielle McGuire, historian, and author of At the Dark End of the Street, and Kim Trent, President of the Rosa Parks Foundation.

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