“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” -- "First Lady of Civil Rights" and trailblazing civil rights activist Rosa Parks (2/4/1913 - 10/24/2005), from her 1992 autobiography "Rosa Parks: My Story." Her courageous refusal to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, AL sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Supreme Court later ruled that the bus service was a "public "facility," and thus discrimination against Ms. Parks was unconstitutional. There's no better way to celebrate Black History Month than to celebrate Ms. Parks' birthday today.
(photo: A reenactment photo for Look magazine of Ms. Parks in the front of the bus. Bettmann / Corbis)
