What were the important characteristics of Rosa Parks?

Rosa Parks illustrated very well the idea of 'passive resistance' or non-violent protest. One very famous proponent of this techn ique was of course Gandhi in India. He attempted to find a way of shaming or drawing attention to the sins of the oppressors without reducing himself and his followers to their level and instigated peaceful protests such as long walks to freedom, sit-ins and other organisations began to use tactics such as hunger strikes. Rosa Parks may have taken from this the idea of publicity. Quite often this type of protest necessitates some type of personal suffering or humilation in order to get noticed. However, in order to get people, press and media to empathize it is necessary to be an innocent (and so worthy) victim. This may be why Rosa Parks succeeded where the two teens wouldn't have worked - being blameless and clean living, she engaged the sympathies of both black and white across the world.

You can approach this from another angle by looking at her gender. Think of how much courage it took for a woman to stand up to injustice. Also think of the symbolic value of Rosa Parks. The very fact that a woman could spark such a boycott speaks of great power in non-violence. It also put the those who would seek separation in such a negative light. It really is the bible's idea of having the "weak" shame the "strong." Or the idea of "foolishness" being wiser than the "wisdom" of oppression. To put it another way, we see a David and Goliath type of imagery. The underdog wins. So, one character that we can underline is her gender. Another characteristic is her commitment to non-violence.

What do you consider to be "important characteristics?"

I guess what I would say she must have had two very important characteristics -- intelligence and determination.  The reason I say this is because she managed to become a pretty important person even though she was a woman in a time and place where it wasn't that easy for women to get ahead.

I also say this because most people don't realize that she wasn't just some tired woman who decided not to change seats on the bus.  Parks was already an experienced community activist who was a leader in the civil rights community in Birmingham.  In fact, she had (soon before her arrest) spent several weeks at a school for community leaders.  The civil rights community had been looking for a good way to attack segregation (there had been two teens that same year who had been arrested for not giving up their seats, but they were seen as bad symbols of the black community) and she decided to provide it herself.

So, to get to that kind of position, she must have been smart and determined and I'd say those were her most important characteristics.

How did Rosa Parks contribute to the Civil Rights Movement?

In short, Rosa Parks shows the power of one person to ignite needed social change.

When Parks originally refused to give up her seat, she said that she was simply tired of giving in. She knew that she faced arrest if she failed to comply with the bus driver's demands for her to move, but she inherently knew that this was a battle worth fighting.

The police were called, and Parks was removed from the bus and arrested. On the day of her trial, African Americans were urged to stay home and not utilize the Montgomery bus system as a sign of protest against her arrest. The initial response was encouraging, and organizers encouraged protesters to continue avoiding the city's buses. This became known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and eventually led to a case which was heard by the United States Supreme Court, who declared segregation on public means of transport was illegal.

Following her trial, Parks faced personal difficulties in Montgomery; both she and her husband were fired from their jobs. Not willing to let difficulty quiet her spirit, Parks moved to Detroit and began working in US Representative John Conyer's congressional office.

Because of her lifelong commitment to civil rights, Parks was presented with many awards, from the NAACP's Spingarn Medal to the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was also hailed as one of TIME magazine's 20 Most Influential People of the twentieth century.

Why was she so influential? Parks showed that a rather ordinary person can realize social injustice and can ignite other people to work toward social change. She demonstrated the positive outcomes that can result from a rather ordinary effort. Parks did not refuse to give up her seat because she sought fame for her efforts; instead, she simply answered the convictions in her own soul. Perhaps this is what is most remarkable about her story. The end of segregated public transport did not originate with politicians or national leaders but instead began with the quiet refusal of one woman to submit to an inherently flawed system.

I think the most important contribution Rosa Parks made was that, in her act of defiance, she proved that it is possible for a person to make a stand against an unjust law. She may not have meant to become the figure that she did in history, and in the greater scheme of things her action was not that huge, but what she did was act instead of sitting idly by and allowing an unjust law to continue to exist.

What Parks did is not much different from many other important figures who have gotten their name into our history text books. She saw something that was wrong with society and instead of just allowing it to continue she did something about it. This is how revolutions begin - with one person who is wiling to issue a challenge, to be a leader. It does not matter how many people disagree with something if none of them are willing to take the risk and stand against what they don't agree with.

Rosa Parks is famous as the woman who is said to have started the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama in 1955.  This was the first major mass public action of the Civil Rights Movement.

I say that she is "said to have" started the boycott because popular legend has it that she was simply a random woman who was too tired to deal with being asked to give up her seat.  Instead, she was a leader in the civil rights community in Birmingham and the groups had been wanting to challenge segregation on the busses for some time but had been waiting to find the right person as a face of the challenge.

At any rate, the bus boycott did start with her action and it can be said to have kicked off the movement that led to legal equality for black Americans.

What impact did Rosa Parks have on the Civil Rights Movement?

So everything that mkoren said was true. However, did you know that before Rosa Parks did all of that, there was another woman who did the same exact thing? Her name is Claudette Colvin, but she isn't famous. Let's learn why: 

Claudette Colvin did the same exact thing as Rosa Parks: she wouldn't give up her seat on the bus. In the South during the 1860s-1950s, there were a set of laws known as "Jim Crow", which made it illegal for people of color to do many things. One such law applied to the bus system: people of color were only allowed to sit in the back of the bus, but if the front of the bus filled up with white people, people of color had to give up their seats to stand. 15-year-old Claudette refused to give up her seat to a white person when the bus was full, and as a result she was taken to jail. 

So why doesn't anyone know about her? During the Civil Rights Era, people of color, specifically African Americans, were campaigning for equal rights. Now campaigning is the important word here: to campaign is "to work in an organized and active way toward a particular goal, typically a political or social one" (Merriam Webster). When Civil Rights leaders were campaigning, they wanted to change the image of African Americans that many White Americans had. Although most White Americans had never gotten to know or even met an African American due to segregation, White Americans held many negative stereotypes about African Americans. 

Unfortunately, Colvin fulfilled many of the stereotypes that White Americans held about African Americans. She had very dark skin, she had a fiery, independent spirit, and she was a single teenage mother. So, when Colvin took her case to NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), they decided to use the idea of her situation but to present the case through a milder, sweeter woman: Rosa Parks. 9 months later, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, and the story we all know begins. 

For more information, check out this article on NPR: http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/02/27/389563788/before-rosa-parks-a-teenager-defied-segregation-on-an-alabama-bus

Rosa Parks made a huge difference in the civil rights movement.  She believed it was wrong to segregate African-Americans. She also believed it was wrong to treat African-Americans differently.  In 1955, Rosa Parks made national headlines when she refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama to a white man.  In the south, the Jim Crow laws allowed for segregation to exist. For example, there were separate seating areas on buses for blacks and whites.  Rosa Park was sitting in the section of the bus reserved for black people.  However, there was a rule that if the white section was full and some white people were standing, the black people would have to give up their seats to the white people who were standing. Rosa Parks refused to do this. When one white man was standing, the driver ordered four black people to give up their seats.  Rosa Park refused and was arrested.  This led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  It lasted 381 days.  It ended when segregation on buses was ruled unconstitutional.  Rosa Parks sent a message through her actions that nonviolent protest was a way to bring about change in the conditions African-Americans were facing in many southern states.  

What made Rosa Parks a hero during the Civil Rights Movement?

In 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American woman from Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person, an act of defiance which violated the segregation laws of Alabama. Rosa Parks was arrested and her arrest led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and, a little over a year later, a Supreme Court ruling which forced Alabama to desegregate its buses.

Rosa Parks is a hero firstly because her act of defiance was a moral stand, against the injustices and violence of institutionalized racism, and secondly because she took this moral stand at a time when the Ku Klux Klan were operating in Alabama (often with impunity given their close links with the police), bombing the homes of black social activists.

Rosa Parks's decision not to give up her seat for a white passenger is also often credited with providing the spark that gave life to the civil rights movement. Indeed, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was organized by a young pastor by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr., who of course rose to prominence as the figurehead of the civil rights movement.

In summary then, Rosa Parks was heroic because she stood up (or, rather, sat down) for what was morally right, because she did so at great personal risk, and because she helped bring about greater, lasting change.