Rosa Parks is known for refusing to give up her seat; however, she was not the first. What made Parks the icon for the movement?

1949 - Jo Ann Robinson was humiliated by an abusive and racist Montgomery City Lines bus driver, and she set out to use the WPC to target racial seating practices on Montgomery buses. (Hine 1993)
1955 - Mary Louise Smith was the age of 18, October 21, 1955 Mary was returning home on the city line bus and was ordered to relinquish her seat for a white passenger, in which she refused. Her stand landed her in jail and she was charged with failure to obey segregation orders, some 40 days before the arrest of Rosa Parks on similar charges.
1955 - Claudette Colvin was arrested on March 2, 1955 (nine months prior to Rosa Park's arrest) for a similar act of resistance. While Claudette was not the first person to be arrested, she was the first to plead not guilty to segregation charges and demand a trial.
1955 - Sue McDonald on October of 1955, a white bus driver on the Montgomery City Bus Line forced Mrs. McDonald to give up her seat to a white passenger. It was this reason and other acts and manifestations of white supremacy that she agreed to become a plaintiff in Browder vs Gayle class action law suit. (BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION)
1854 - Elizabeth Jennings Graham was thrown off a horse drawn carriage by a white conductor who refused to allow her to ride in the ladies car that he reserved for whites only.
1884 - Ida B. Wells was forcibly removed from a rail car in Tennessee in 1884. The rail car was reserved for white ladies only. Tennessee was the first state to enact a separate car act, demanding separate cars for blacks and whites even though it was in violation of the 14th Amendment. (Hine, 1993)