On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger, which sparked the 381-day Montgomery, Ala., bus boycotts and turned the 42-year-old seamstress into a critical symbol of the fight against segregation laws in the South.
Parks died on Oct. 4, 2005, but her legacy remains a driving force in the push for racial equality. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 1996 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999.
The doodle, pictured below, features a '50s-style commuter bus and a group of children in place of the "ogl" in Google. Look closely by the door and you'll notice the serial number 2857, the same serial number engraved on the actual bus where the historic incident took place.
Some Google users, however, are questioning the choice of honoring Parks rather than using the Google doodle to recognize World AIDS Day, as Yahoo! has done with its logo.
Check out this video to learn more about Parks and her unlikely rise in the civil rights movement:
Other recent Google doodles include Ina Garten's Thanksgiving doodle, the artist Frida Kahlo doodle and a Dizzy Gillespie birthday doodle.
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