Rosa Parks

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Rosa Parks is famous for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in 1955. She was tired of giving in and refused to do this. The bus driver had demanded that Parks and three other African American riders give up their seats even though they were set in the area assigned to African Americans. The three others gave up their seats but Parks refused. Parks was a civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her seat sparked the Montgomery(Alabama) Bus Boycott which lead to the end of racial segregation of public facilities. At age 81 Rosa Parks was beaten and robbed of $50. The owner of the Redwings ice hockey team, Detroit Tigers baseball team and founder of Little Caesars, the pizza chain, heard of this happening. Mike Ilitch paid her rent in a safer new apartment until she died at age 92 in 2005. Only four U.S.citizens from private life have been given the honor of lying in state in the U.S.capitol upon their deaths. Rosa Parks was one of these. Over 30,000 people filed past her coffin and paid their respects to this woman.