Google honors Rosa Parks with a Google Doodle

Rosa Parks, pictured here with Martin Luther King in the background, was honored Dec. 1 with a Google Doodle. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Google’s homepage today honors the memory of Rosa Parks. The Google Doodle for Dec. 1 commemorates Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on December 1, 1955. Parks was a key figure in the Civil Rights movement of the mid-20th century.

Google Doodle celebrates Rosa Parks

Occasionally, Google will bestow a Google Doodle, an illustrated tip of the hat to a person, thing or event, on the Google homepage. Today the Google Doodle commemorates Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on Dec. 1, 1955. It was one of the most significant events in modern American history and easily one of the catalysts in the struggle for civil rights for African Americans. Along with the shock of the brutal murder of Emmett Till days before she boarded the bus on that fateful day, it was one of the key moments in spurring people to fight for ending segregation in the South.

Parks refuses to give up her seat

Rosa Parks boarded a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., on Dec. 1, 1955 after work. She refused to give her seat to a white passenger and the bus driver, James Blake, had her arrested. Though not the first act of its kind by any means, Parks’ act of civil disobedience occurred at precisely the right time and place. With the brutal torture and slaying of Emmett Till fresh in everyone’s minds, Parks’ arrest incensed anti-segregation activists and African Americans in Montgomery to action. The Montgomery Bus Boycott began immediately, lasting more than a year, bringing the bus system in Montgomery to its knees from lost revenue. The Supreme Court then slapped Alabama’s racist policies down hard in Browder v. Gayle in December of 1956.

Central figure in Civil Rights struggle

Rosa Parks, along with Martin Luther King Jr., became a central figure in the fight for African American civil rights. She was a key figure for one of the most important and turbulent chapters in America history and was granted the rare honor of being laid in state in the nation’s capital after her death.