The incident happened in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa Parks broke the law which said that any black person must give up their seat if a white person is left standing on the bus.

The bus driver happened to be the same one who threw her off the bus 12 years earlier when she refused to get on the back entrance as she was required to do.

Rosa was warned by the driver that she must vacate her seat or the driver threatened to call the police. Mrs Parks, who apparently said she had a hard day at work (as a seamstress) and was tired, told him to go ahead. Whilst her protest was almost certainly instantaneous, Mrs Parks was active in the black rights movement and was a leader in National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), she was well aware of growing calls for action against the segregation policy.

The police were called and charged her with breaking the segregation laws.

Following Mrs Parks' arrest a general boycott of public transport was called by Martin Luther King Jr. 70% of customers were black and the municipal transportation system suffered.

Following her death, on October 24, 2005, the US Senate paid tribute to the life of Rosa Parks by allowing her body to lie in honor in the US Capitol Rotunda.