Rosa Parks - Detroit, MI - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

In December of 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for a violation one of that city’s statutes regarding segregation on city buses. The incident sparked a variety of appeals and lawsuits, and a year-long boycott of Montgomery’s buses by the black community which accounted for about 75% of the city’s population. It also marked the rise of Martin Luther King Jr. as leader of the Civil Rights Movement. In November of 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled that Montgomery’s bus segregation laws were unconstitutional.

Rosa Parks did not set out to fabricate an incident although such demonstrations had been frequently discussed in the NAACP and other activist circles in which she moved. Rather, she boarded the bus and took a seat in the ‘colored’ section in accordance with the local ordinance. When the ‘white’ section filled up, the bus driver moved the sign, which delimited the sections, back one row and asked the folks sitting in that row to move. At this point, Parks decided that it was as good a time as any to protest and refused to give up her seat. Police eventually arrested Parks and the rest is history.

Parks remained active in the Civil Rights Movement but left Montgomery, eventually living in Detroit near her in-laws. When John Conyers was elected to Congress representing the Detroit area, she was hired as a secretary and receptionist in his office, a position she held until she retired in 1988.

Over the years, Rosa Parks has received many honors and accolades, including a statue in the U.S. Capitol. She also appeared on a U.S. postage stamp issued in 2013. Although the portrait of Parks on the stamp is based on a photo taken during her arrest, it shows her at her seat on the bus - the correct seat I might add, as many depictions of Rosa Parks on a bus are actually based on later staged photos. And you can see the actual bus involved with the original incident: It’s on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI, with the correct seat marked.
(Sources: wikipedia.org, history.com)

Description: Rosa Parks is interred in the Chapel mausoleum (now renamed the Rosa Parks Mausoleum) at Detroit’s Woodlawn Cemetery. The mausoleum is usually locked but the office will provide you with the access code. Date of birth: 02/04/1913 Date of death: 10/24/2005 Area of notoriety: Historical Figure Marker Type: Other Setting: Indoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

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