February 4 (California and Missouri) or December 1 (Ohio and Oregon)
Frequency
Annual
Rosa Parks Day is a holiday in honor of the civil rights leader
Rosa Parks, celebrated in the U.S. states of
California and
Missouri on her birthday, February 4, in
Michigan on the first Monday after her birthday, and in
Ohio and
Oregon on the day she was arrested, December 1.
Rosa Parks Day was created by the Michigan State Legislature and first celebrated in 1998.[1] The California State Legislature followed suit in 2000.[2] The holiday was first designated in the U.S. state of
Ohio championed by
Joyce Beatty, advocate who helped Ohio's legislation pass to honor the late leader.[3] It is also celebrated by the Columbus Ohio bus system (COTA) with a special tribute to the late civil rights leader.[4] As of 2014, Missouri Governor
Jay Nixon proclaimed Rosa Parks Day official in the state.[5] In 2014, Oregon governor
John Kitzhaber declared that Oregon would celebrate its first Rosa Parks Day. In 2021, the Texas Legislature passed HB 3481, recognizing December 1 as Rosa Parks Day in the state.[6] After
Juneteenth became a federal holiday, there are growing calls for this day to also be observed at the federal level. On September 3, 2021, HR 5111 proposes that this day be added to the list of federal holidays.[7]
Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was a
seamstress by profession; she was also the secretary for the Montgomery chapter of the
NAACP. Twelve years before her history-making arrest, Parks was stopped from boarding a city bus by driver
James F. Blake, who ordered her to board at the back door and then drove off without her. Parks vowed never again to ride a bus driven by Blake. As a member of the NAACP, Parks was an investigator assigned to cases of sexual assault. In 1945, she was sent to Abbeville, Alabama, to investigate the gang rape of
Recy Taylor. The protest that arose around the Taylor case was the first instance of a nationwide civil rights protest, and it laid the groundwork for the Montgomery bus boycott.[18]
In 1955, Parks completed a course in "Race Relations" at the
Highlander Folk School in Tennessee where
nonviolentcivil disobedience had been discussed as a tactic. On December 1, 1955, Parks was sitting in the frontmost row for black people. When a Caucasian man boarded the bus, the bus driver told everyone in her row to move back. At that moment, Parks realized that she was again on a bus driven by Blake. While all of the other black people in her row complied, Parks refused, and was arrested[19] for failing to obey the driver's seat assignments, as city ordinances did not explicitly mandate segregation but did give the bus driver authority to assign seats. Found guilty on December 5,[20] Parks was fined $10 plus a court cost of $4,[21] but she appealed.
Parks' action gained notoriety leading to the
Montgomery bus boycott, which was a seminal event in the
civil rights movement, and was a political and social
protest campaign against the policy of
racial segregation on the public transit system of
Montgomery,
Alabama. The campaign lasted from December 1, 1955, to December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional.[22] Many important figures in the civil rights movement took part in the boycott, including Reverend
Martin Luther King Jr. and
Ralph Abernathy. The 381-day boycott almost bankrupted the bus company and effectively made segregation in buses unconstitutional and illegal.
^McGuire, Danielle L. (2010). At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance- A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. Random House. p. 8 and 39.
ISBN978-0-307-26906-5.
(federal) = federal holidays, (abbreviation) = state/territorial holidays, (religious) = religious holidays, (cultural) = holiday related to a specific
racial/ethnic group or
sexual minority, (week) = week-long holidays, (month) = month-long holidays, (36) =
Title 36 Observances and Ceremonies