Rosa Parks did good.

She kept her seat 56 years ago today.

Before Parks was arrested in 1955, she had a small episode on a bus in 1943. Parks was ordered to enter at the back of the bus. As she was heading to the back of the bus, the bus driver drove off without her. On that day, Parks promised herself that she would never again ride a bus driven by James F. Blake, the offending driver. On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Parks was sitting in the front-most row for black people. When a Caucasian man boarded the bus, the bus driver told everyone in her row to move back to create a new row for the whites. At that moment, Parks suddenly realized in horror 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 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,[7] Parks was fined $10 plus a court cost of $4[8], but she appealed. NAACP leader E.D. Nixon had been planning to start a boycott of this nature and used her arrest to trigger the Montgomery Bus Boycott. As a result, Rosa Parks is considered one of the pioneers of the civil rights movement.