Rosa Louise McCauley parks [February 4, 1913october 24, 2004] was an African American civil rights activist, whom the united states congress called the first lady of civil rights and the mother of freedom movement. her first birthday, February 4, and the day she was arrested December 1 , have both become Rosa parks day , commemorated in both California and Ohio. parks act of defiance and the Montgomery bus boycott became important symbols of the modern civil rights movement. she became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. she organized and collaborated with civil rights leader including Edgar Nixon, president of the local chapter of the NAACP and Martin Luther king Jr. a new minister in town who gained national prominence in the civil rights movements . At the time, parks was secretary of the NAACP . she had recently attended the highlander folk school , a Tennessee center for training activists for workers rights and racial equality. She acted as a private citizen tired of giving in Although widely honored in later years , she also suffered for her act she was fired from her job as a seamstress in a local department store and received death threats for years afterward.