Rosa Parks

On December 1, 1955, during a typical evening rush hour in Montgomery, Alabama, a 42-year-old woman took a seat on the bus on her way home from the Montgomery Fair department store where she worked as a seamstress. Before she reached her destination, she quietly set off a social revolution when the bus driver instructed her to move back, and she refused. Rosa Parks, an African American, was arrested that day for violating a city law requiring racial segregation of public buses.

The quiet seamstress we want on our $10 bill was a radical active in the Black Power movement.

In honor of what would be Rosa Parks' 104th birthday, here are some lesser known facts about her life before the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

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