The woman who refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated Montgomery bus in 1955 was Rosa Parks.
Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, after refusing to move when the bus driver ordered her to give up her seat. She was not simply a tired passenger, as a popular version of the story sometimes suggests: she was an experienced NAACP activist who understood the significance of challenging segregation.
Her arrest helped trigger the Montgomery bus boycott, which began on December 5, 1955. Black residents organized carpools and avoided city buses for more than a year, placing severe economic pressure on the Montgomery bus system.
The boycott ended after a federal court ruling, affirmed by the Supreme Court, struck down bus segregation. Parks later moved to Detroit, worked for Representative John Conyers, and remained a prominent civil-rights figure. Her action became one of the movement’s most recognizable acts of resistance.