Rosa Parks

Almost 50 years ago, a 42 year old black woman in Alabama refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. Her defiance of the Jim Crow law, aka racial discrimination, ultimately led to the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act. Although she was not the first black person to defy this segregating law, she will always be remembered as the first to challenge it and so becoming an inspiration to many Americans, black and white. Rest in peace, Rosa Parks.