Rosa parks bus

For 382 days, almost the entire African-American population of Montgomery, Alabama, including leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, refused to ride on segregated buses, a turning point in the American civil rights movement.

Rosa Parks's work didn't stop with her arrest.

For 382 days, almost the entire African American population of Montgomery, Alabama, including leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, refused to ride on segregated buses. The protests marked a turning point in the American civil rights movement.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation's list of 10 critical sites in American civil rights history

Rosa Parks 1956 - Public Domain image from section: American History/African A Rights/ at wpclipart.com

As the nation observes Martin Luther King Jr. Day, many who went to Selma — including those who worked or grew up in Kansas City — believe the journey to equal rights continues to prove long and difficult, but also transformative and self-renewing.

On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks took her fateful bus ride in Montgomery, Alabama.

Rosa Parks was a Black civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man ignited the American civil rights movement. Because she played a leading role in the Montgomery bus boycott, she is called the ‘mother of the civil rights movement.’

Rosa Park's Bus