Montgomery Bus Boycott: The story of Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement

1913
Rosa McCauley born in Tuskegee, Ala.

1918
Enters school in Pine Level, Ala.

1924
Begins attending school in Montgomery, Ala., but is forced to leave in 1929 to care for her aging grandmother.

1932
Marries Raymond Parks in Pine Level, Ala..

1933
Receives high school diploma

1943
Rosa Parks is elected secretary of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP.

1945
Rosa Parks registers to vote. The administrator failed her the first two times she took the registration literacy test. The third time, she wrote down all her answers on another piece of paper in case she would later need to prove that she should have passed. But it wasn’t necessary. A few weeks later she received her certificate in the mail.

1955
Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give her bus seat to a white man.

Rosa Parks’ case goes to trial. More than 5,000 people pack Holt Street Baptist Church and pass a resolution to continue the boycott..

Montgomery citizens petition the city of Montgomery to open a jitney line of station wagons capable of carrying eight passengers for a low fare. No action reflected in the Montgomery City Commission minutes.

1956
As the boycott continues, the Montgomery City Commission doubles bus fares to 20 cents; children’s fares raised to 10 cents.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s home is bombed. Montgomery City Commission issues $500 reward in connection with bombing.

Attorney Fred Gray files lawsuit against segregation in federal court.

Three federal judges vote 2-1 to strike down Montgomery bus segregation ordinances as unconstitutional.

U.S. Supreme Court rules that segregation of city buses is unconstitutional.

Federal injunctions are served on the city, enforcing the Court’s ruling on public transportation.

Black Montgomerians drop the boycott of the bus system.

1957
Parks and her husband move to Detroit, Mich.

1963
About 250,000 people join the March on Washington. Congregating at the Lincoln Memorial, participants listen as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Rosa Parks joins in the March on Washington..

1965
Parks begins working in the office of Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. After serving as an administrative assistant more than 20 years, she retired in 1988. Parks worked with Conyers on creating a holiday to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

1979
Rosa Parks receives prestigious Spingarn Award, the NAACP’s highest honor for civil rights contributions. Also, Parks’ mother, Leona McCauley, dies.

1992
Parks publishes her first book, “Rosa Parks: My Story” (New York: Dial Books) with Jim Haskins

1994
Parks’ memoir, “Quiet Strength,” is published. Parks takes a trip to Japan; receives honorary doctorate degree/Soka University; travels to Stockholm, Sweden, to receive Rosa Parks Peace Prize and to light the Peace Candle.

Parks is attacked and beaten in her Detroit home by an African-American man who wanted money and apparently did not recognize her. She wrote after the incident, “I pray for this young man and the conditions in our country that have made him this way.”

1996
Rosa Parks receives the highest U.S. civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

1998
Groundbreaking for Troy State University Montgomery’s Rosa Parks Museum and Library.

1999
Parks receives the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor from a bill widely supported by both houses of Congress.

2000
Dedication and grand opening of Troy State University Montgomery’s Rosa Parks Museum and Library.

2005
Lawyers for Rosa Parks settle a lawsuit against rap duo Outkast.
October 24, 2005

Rosa Parks dies in Detroit at age 92.