As a teenager growing up in Alabama, Lewis wrote a letter to Martin Luther King Jr. during a budding civil rights movement. In a letter back, King invited the 18-year-old to join the cause.
The Alabama woman's civil rights activism did not begin or end with her famous refusal to move to the back of a bus in segregated Montgomery, a new exhibit of her writings, documents and photos shows.
Georgia Gilmore organized black women to cook without raising the suspicions of their white employers, and poured the proceeds into an alternative transportation system for Montgomery bus boycotters.
At the Golden Globes, Oprah Winfrey told the story of Recy Taylor's rape in 1944. Taylor died last month at 97. NPR's Michel Martin reflects on their 2011 interview and why her story still haunts us.
Sixty years ago Tuesday, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus. Recruits in Montgomery, Ala., are learning about Parks in a course aimed at eliminating bias in policing.
As the 60th anniversary of the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott approaches, author Jeanne Theoharis says it's time to let go of the image of Rosa Parks as an unassuming accidental activist.
Decades after Rosa Parks changed history, a new generation faces the challenge of remaking the civil rights movement for the next century. What can they learn from the past to build for the future?
Meg McAleer, one of the archivists working on the Rosa Parks collection, says the documents provide a new window on the courage and skill of Parks, and the consequences she and her husband suffered.
