November 15, 1979 | Rosa Parks Awarded The Spingarn Medal
“The First Lady of Civil Rights”, Rosa Louise McCauley Parks received the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal on November 15, 1979. The Spingarn Medal is awarded annually to an African American for their achievement. The NAACP notes that she was given the reward “In recognition to the quiet courage and determination exemplified when she refused to surrender her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus”. When Rosa Park sat down December 1, 1955 on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, she stood up for the dignity and civil rights of every African American in the United States.
![See page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Rosa Parks (detail)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Rosa_Parks_%28detail%29.tiff/lossless-page1-560px-Rosa_Parks_%28detail%29.tiff.png)
Rosa Parks with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the background. 1955

Rosa Parks receive an award from President Bill Clinton.