Rosa Park was born in Tuskegee, Alabama on February 4, 1913. As she was growing up, discrimination against African Americans was widespread. There were "Jim Crow" laws that kept blacks separated from whites on trains and in churches, restaurants, and other public places. In 1955, while Rosa was riding home from work by bus in Montgomery, Alabama, the driver asked her to give up her seat to a white passenger. Rosa refused and was arrested. In protest, blacks throughout the city boycotted the city's buses. For many people this marked the beginning of the civil rights movement in America.

After a Supreme Court ruling granting African Americans the right to sit wherever they wanted on public buses, Rosa Parks continued to work for equal treatment of blacks and whites. She won many awards for her efforts, including the United Stated Medal of Freedom.

From the dust jacket