Months prior to Parks arrest for civil disobedience, four other women had been arrested for refusing to give up their seat on a bus as well. One of the more well-known women of the group was 15 year old Claudette Colvin who like Parks was involved with the NAACP - Colvin was a mentee of Parks. Originally the boycott and civil action case was to be centered around Colvin until it was discovered that she was pregnant and had trouble keeping composed when upset. Parks arrest was chosen to launch a challenge against segregation laws due to her impeccable character and reputation. Colvin and the three other women, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith re-emerged when they agreed to file a civil action on February 1, 1956. The outcome of this civil action was a panel of three judges agreed 'that Montgomery segregation codes "deny and deprive plaintiffs and other Negro citizens similarly situated of the equal protection of the laws and due process of law secured by the Fourteenth Amendment."'

This webpage is part of an online exhibition on the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History website, titled "Separate Is Not Equal Brown v. Board of Education". Listed are a handful of Jim Crow laws that prohibited various interactions between white people and individuals of other races and ethnicities. These laws prohibited intermarriage, mandated separate facilities for travel and education, and even imposed jail time for women who carried the child of a black or mixed race man. In communities around the country property owners would sign a restrictive covenant that stated they promised not to sell their homes to individuals who were not white. The bus that Parks was arrested on belonged to a company that adhered to segregation laws. Living in a city as diverse as New York makes it so challenging for me to imagine that there was a time when people couldn't ride a bus together if they belonged to different racial groups. On any given day I find myself sitting or standing next to a variety of people from all kinds of ethnic and cultural background. Thank goodness for the Civil Rights movement and the activists that stood up for equality.

In the southern town of Indianola, Mississippi, a number of segregated schools still exist and thrive to this day. Inexpensive private schools for white children were founded in response to federal orders of desegregation between the years of 1964-1972. The stark difference between the resources available for the white schools as oppose to black schools is blatant - run down buildings, spotty internet, and outdated learning materials plague the public schools predominantly attended by black students. I believe this article is relevant to the Parks' photo because it shows us that even though this country has made strides in regards to equality, blatant segregation still exists.

This article in the African American History section of About.com gives a brief biographical summary of Parks' life and civil rights accomplishments. Interestingly, it mentions that Parks' was aware of the divide between black and white people as a child, "I'd see the bus pass every day. But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and white world." It is apparent that Parks' would no longer accept what was custom the day she refused to give up her seat on that Montgomery bus. The African American History section on About.com has an extensive collection of historical information, timelines, video clips, facts of African American activists, writers, artists, politicians, and quite a bit of information on Parks and the Civil Rights movement.

The author of this blog post beseeches the reader to not just view Parks as a demure, passive woman whose one-off contribution to civil rights was not giving up her seat, but as a deeply committed activist whose memory and contributions put her side by side with other civil rights icons such as Martin Luther King Jr. This article was posted on the Ms. Magazine.com blog site, a blog that highlights women's issues written about, by female writers. I believe it appropriate to discuss the feminist angle regarding Rosa Park's historic action. She stood up for her rights not only during a time of segregation, but also a time of clear gender divisions, a time when all women were still considered second class citizens. I did a search on Google for Rosa Parks and feminism, and this blog post came up. When I did a search of Rosa Park's name in the site's search engine, I found more than a dozen articles/posts detailing Park's story and a few mentions of other black female activists such as Shirley Chisholm, the first black female member of Congress, freedom fighter Harriet Tubman, and Flo Kennedy, one of the founding members of the National Organization for Women.