Rosa Parks, the black seamstress who became famous for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man, died tonight in Detroit. She was 92 years old.

Rosa Parks was a reluctant hero. Her simple, but courageous, act of civil disobedience sparked the Montgomery bus boycott and captured the attention of the nation, opening eyes to the humilation and cruelty inherent in segregation laws of the time. Despite her celebrity, however, Rosa Parks never felt she did anything special. She had just reached her breaking point and fought back first - tired of being made to feel, like so many other black citizens, like less of a human being because of her color.

Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama on February 4, 1913 to Leona Edward and James McCauley. In December 1932, she married Raymond Parks, a 29-year-old barber. She spent much of her life as an active member of the NAACP and other civil rights organizations. For her contributions to the civil rights movement she received numerous awards and tributes, including the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP in 1970, the prestigious Martin Luther King, Jr. Award in 1980, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the highest honor that the U.S. government can bestow on a civilian -- in 1999. Rosa Parks died on October 24, 2005 at the age of 92.