Rosa Louise Mccauley Parks, an American woman, was an emblematic figure of the fight against racial segregation in the United States. In 1943, Rosa Parks joined the American Civil Rights Movement for which she worked as a secretary until 1957. On 1 December 1955, in the city of Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks who was sitting on a seat reserved for whites only, refuses to obey a bus driver who asks her to leave your seat and go and sit in the back of the vehicle. By her gesture she inspires a great wave of civic disobedience. President George W. Bush and all the other big names of the black world pay tribute to her after her death. The American flag is flown at half-mast on this occasion and her body is on display in the Capitol for two days, an honour so far reserved to great men.