JURIST - Paper Chase: Civil rights activist Rosa Parks dies at 92

[JURIST] Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks [TIME profile], known as the "mother of the civil rights movement," died Monday evening at her home in Detroit. She was 92. Parks was best known for her arrest after refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955, when racial discrimination was still legally sanctioned. Her simple gesture resulted in a year-long boycott [Wikipedia backgrounder] of the Montgomery public transit system. The boycott only ended after bus segregation was ruled illegal in 1956, in Browder v. Gayle [text; Stetson Law School backgrounder, PDF], a decision affirmed by the US Supreme Court in Gayle v. Browder [text]. The Montgomery bus boycott came one year after the landmark Brown v. Board [text; Brown Foundation website] decision banning the "inherently unequal" segregation of blacks and whites in schools. The boycott is said to mark the start of the modern civil rights movement, which led to the 1964 Civil Rights Act [text], banning racial discrimination in public accommodations. In 1999, Parks received the Congressional Gold Medal [US Mint website] for her civil rights work. AP has more.

For a one-stop snapshot of the latest legal news that matters, with breaking documents, new legal videos, live law-related webcasts, commentary by expert law professors and more - all updated through the day in real time, with no ads and no registration barriers - visit JURIST's homepage and check back often...