From The Ebony Files

Ebony, April, 2001

Rosa Parks, "the mother of the Civil Rights Movement," is fingerprinted by Deputy Sheriff D.H. Lackey in Montgomery, Ala., on February 22, 1956, two months after refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a White passenger on December 1, 1955. The seamstress defied a local segregation ordinance and was assessed a fine of $14.

Her action led to the Montgomery bus boycott and sparked the Civil Rights Movement, which eventually brought about desegregation of public transportation. In 1996, Parks was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, and in 1999, she was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal.