Hero Rosa Parks

An iconic figure in the story of the struggle for civil rights for African Americans was Rosa Parks, who became known to America because in 1955 she refused to move to the back of a Montgomery, AL, bus to make room for a white passenger.

At that time, some bus seats were labeled for whites, others for blacks. Parks was seated in what then was termed the "colored" section when a white passenger got on the bus and the driver asked her to move further back. She refused and was arrested.

The otherwise mild-mannered Parks, a seamstress by trade, was convicted of disorderly conduct but had struck an important symbolic blow for equal rights.

It was her small protest that brought Martin Luther King and other civil rights figures to Montgomery, as well as sparking a yearlong bus boycott by Montgomery blacks. Her act was also influential in the U.S. Supreme Court's 1956 ruling that outlawed segregated seating on public transportation.

Parks received many honors, yet in 1994, she was mugged and robbed, ironically, by a fellow African American. Parks died in 2005.