Rosa Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement, best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement”. Parks became an NAACP activist in 1943, participating in several high-profile civil rights campaigns. Parks died of natural causes on October 24, 2005, at the age of 92, in her apartment on the east side of Detroit.