Rosa Parks, RIP

Rosa Parks, the black woman who sparked a revolution in American race relations, has died at the age of 92.

.

In Montgomery, Alabama, Mrs Parks a department store seamstress and civil rights activist, then 42, caught a bus on December 1st, 1955.

.

Three stops later, a white man boarded the bus and the driver told Mrs Parks and three other black passengers to stand up to make room for the white man to sit alone, as the rules required.

.

Mrs Parks refused, saying, "No. I'm tired of being treated like a second class citizen."

She later explained to police, "I didn't think I should have to, I paid my fare like everyone else."

.

Four days later, she was convicted of breaking the law and fined $10, plus $4 court costs.

.

That day, Reverend Martin Luther King led blacks in a boycott of the bus system that lasted 381 days.

The legal challenges led to a Supreme Court decision that forced Montgomery to desegregate its bus system and put an end to laws seperatimg blacks and whites at public facilities throughout the American South.

.

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson said yesterday, "We rejoice in her legacy which will never die. Rosa Parks sat down in order that we might all stand up and the walls of segregation come down."

.

Senator Edward Kennedy said, "The nation lost a courageous woman and a true American hero. Rosa Parks stood up not only for herself, but for generations upon generations of Americans."

.

Mrs Parks had been suffering from progressive dementia and rarely appeared in public in recent years. She died peacefully in her sleep at her Detroit home on monday evening, surrounded by friends and family.