Birthday: Rosa Parks

On December 1st, 1955 Rosa Parks left her job as a seamstress and took the bus home. It was a typical crowd that evening but Rosa managed to find a seat to rest weary feet. However, when a white man was unable to find a seat he demanded that she give her seat to him. Rosa refused and was arrested when the bus driver stopped his route and called for the police.

That incident led to a boycott of the City of Montgomery, Alabama bus company. The boycott lasted 382 days before the Supreme Court struck down the city ordinance under which Parks had been arrested. The ruling outlawed racial segregation on public transportation.

Although Rosa Parks denies that she intended to make that stance on that December evening, she continued to fight social injustice throughout her life.

"I did not get on that bus to get arrested," she has said. "I got on the bus to go home."

If Rosa Parks died today she would be worth 8 points for Greg.