Rosa Parks

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, started a revolution. She stepped onto a city bus that evening, exhausted from a long day of sewing at a local department store, and took an empty seat in the designated "colored" section. As the "white" section at the front of the bus filled, the white driver ordered Parks to give up her seat. She refused, and was arrested and jailed. Rosa Parks's act of courage and defiance inspired others to organize the Montgomery bus boycott, one of the most successful non-violent protests in American history. The highly publicized standoff, which lasted 381 days, ended when the U.S. Supreme Court declared bus segregation unconstitutional.

Rosa Parks is an icon of human rights and is seen as a role model by many musicians she has received tributes from the likes of Ashanti, Oprah Winfrey, Outkast, Gwen Stefani and Irish Superstars U2.