Rosa Parks is best known for which pivotal action?

• A. Led the Montgomery Bus Boycott
• B. Sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott by refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus
• C. Organized the 1963 March on Washington
• D. Founded the NAACP

Answer: (B)

The main idea here is recognizing how a single act of defiance can ignite a larger movement. Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white person in December 1955. That quiet act of civil disobedience became the spark that mobilized the local community and civil rights groups to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a sustained protest against bus segregation that lasted over a year and helped push the movement forward. The boycott was led by organizations and leaders in Montgomery, most notably the Montgomery Improvement Association with Martin Luther King Jr., rather than Parks acting alone to lead the entire effort. The other options point to different moments in civil rights history: the March on Washington happened in 1963 and involved many organizers, and the NAACP was founded in 1909, long before Parks.