Rosa Parks was born in Alabama on February 4, 1913. She married a man named Raymond Parks in 1932 who was a barber. She worked at a department store where she was paid twenty three dollars a week. During this time African Americans were treated differently. They had to drink in separate drinking fountains , restrooms, restaurants , and ride in back of busses or stand.

One day when she was going home from work a man came in and told her to stand up . That was the law. If a bus was full African Americans people had to stand up so a white person could sit down. Rosa didn't because she was so tired. She was arrested just for that.

Rosa and other African Americans demanded for civil rights. Martin Luther King Jr. came Montgomery and told the African Americans to boycott the busses. The boycott went on for eleven months. During that time people walked or car pooled where ever they needed to go. In the end they had won they could sit anywhere they in the bus Rosa Parks had started procces towards equal rights for African Americans.

To learn more about Rosa Parks visit these sites:
http://www.holidays.net/mlk/rosa.htm
http://www.greatwomen.org/parks.htm
http://www.galegroup.com/freresrc/blkhstry/parksros.htm