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Rosa Parks and Her Protest for Civil Rights (Dates with History)

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It's hard to believe that this year is the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders, who in 1961 challenged segregation policies in the Deep South. But even before these civil rights activists went on their famous bus ride, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on yet another bus, on December 1, 1955.

At that history-making moment, she wasn't surrounded by friends, and wasn't supported by any organization, although the NAACP quickly took up her cause. She was just a tired woman on her way home from work, who refused to be bullied by a racist bus driver.

This slender 'Dates with History' volume is a quick, interesting read. It doesn't paint Rosa Parks as a lifeless icon, but portrays her as a feisty woman who later criticized Martin Luther King Jr. for not having any female speakers at the culmination of his famous Freedom March in Washington, D.C. A brief history of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement in America rounds out this book. There are numerous photographs, and it really is amazing how much history is crammed into these 31 pages.