Inducted into the Michigan Walk of Fame on May 25, 2006, Rosa Parks became an icon of the modern Civil Rights movement for refusing to give up her Montgomery, Alabama, bus seat to a white passenger in December 1955.  That defiant act fueled a movement that ended legal segregation in America and turned Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. into an internationally known leader.

Because her notoriety made her unemployable in the South, Parks moved to Detroit in 1957.  In 1965 she began working for Congressman John Conyers Jr. and remained there until retiring in 1988.  Congressman Conyers recalled “You treated her with deference because she was so quiet, so serene—just a very special person…. There is only one Rosa Parks.”

Involved in social causes throughout her life, Parks received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Congressional Gold Medal.  In 1987, she founded the Rosa Parks Institute to carry on Mrs. Parks’ work by motivating youth to achieve their highest potential.

After her death, she was the first woman in American history to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol.