Rosa Parks was a civil rights leader who is best known for her refusal to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. This act of civil disobedience sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was a major event in the civil rights movement. Parks was an active member of the NAACP and worked with other civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. to fight for equal rights for African Americans. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996 for her contributions to the civil rights movement.