ACLU Honors Rosa Parks, Rights Activist
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SAN FRANCISCO — Rosa Parks, the former seamstress who 33 years ago set off a decade-long battle for civil rights, was honored on Sunday for her efforts by a chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Parks, 75, was given the Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award by the Northern California branch of the ACLU for her refusal to obey a Montgomery, Ala., bus driver’s order to give up her front seat to a white man.
Parks was arrested Dec. 1, 1955, and subsequently fined $14 for violating the city’s segregation laws, which required blacks to move to the rear of buses if white patrons needed seats in the front.
The arrest set off a successful, yearlong boycott of Montgomery’s bus system, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
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